Kingdom Hearts Lost Levels Volume 1: Banshee Queen
by LemonSmoothie
Summary: Chapter 16: In the end, is the love you take always equal to the love you make?
1. What Goes Up

The Banshee Queen

by Mona Caliente and Jerry McCracken

Chapter 1: What Goes Up

If you've ever been to New York, you might know something about the subway there. In particular, during rush hour. You might remember how fire codes go out the window with the throngs of people smushed inside the tiny cars, gasping for breath and pressed up against the windows like unfortunate Garfield car ornaments. You might be familiar with how ill-tempered crowds can become when stuck in situations like that.

Imagine a smaller space than a New York subway car. Imagine that space hurtling through the universe at a million miles per hour, and imagine one of the ill-tempered occupants of that space is Donald Duck. That will give you some idea of the situation at the start of our story.

The Gummi Ship felt even smaller than usual. Even Jiminy had forgotten just how long everyone had been living in close quarters. Four passengers sharing a tiny fridge and a single, totally inadequate bathroom area tend to grate on each others' nerves, and not the fact that the ship's dashboard CD player had an Air Supply album jammed up inside it could ease the discomfort felt by all of the travelers.

"I'm all out of love! I'm so lost without you!" Goofy attempted to sing.

The proper word for describing Donald's reaction had to be _smite_. The squawking accompanying the blow from his magic rod could be somewhat approximated by _shut up, you big palooka with spaghetti for brains_. Sora had to snatch Donald's weapon from him before he could short out the ship's controls with an errant lightning spell.

Again.

"Think happy thoughts, Donald," said Sora. "Happy thoughts. That's the only way this bucket of bolts is going to be able to keep flying. No frowning."

"I am thinking happy thoughts!" Donald insisted. "I'm thinking of Goofy with duct tape over his mouth!"

"Gawrsh, Donald, don't you like this song?"

"We've been listening to the same album for the past week. On endless repeat. And you broke the volume control when you tripped over the salami sandwich you carelessly left on the floor of the bridge."

"But it's so pretty, Donald. The music, I mean."

"Stop singing!"

"Both of you, calm down," interrupted Sora.

"You shut up!" Donald's face had turned a lovely shade of lavender. Or blood red, or something. Sora was not good enough with color names to tell the difference.

Surprisingly, Jiminy was the one who broke up the fight. This was surprising primarily because the sheer annoyance factor of his companions (having reached 8.2 out of 10 on the Gilbert Gottfried scale) had driven the poor bug to wearing earplugs, allowing him to make an effort to ignore everyone else. For the first time in a while, however, he had a reason to grab their attention.

"Hey, guys, cool it! We're approaching a new planet."

Donald froze in mid strangle. The other two breathed deeply as the grip on each of their necks eased.

"What's that, Jiminy?" said Sora. "A new planet?"

"Yep, Sora, it's a new planet. A new world. It probably has a keyhole and everything."

The atmosphere relaxed about like a balloon relaxes when poked with a sewing needle. The earlier comparison to the plush Garfields became more apropos as the entire party pressed against the front windshield to catch a glimpse of their new destination.

"Do you think King Mickey is down there?" Goofy reverted to being single-minded (at the most).

"Maybe," said Jiminy. "We'll have to go and see."

"I don't like it," was Donald's opinion. "There wasn't supposed to be anything between here and Traverse Town. Isn't there something fishy going on?"

"Fishing? Do we have time for that?"  
"Shut up, Goofy."

"Donald, you have to admit you're a little hard to understand," Sora interjected.

"Am not."

"Just remember what we taught you."

Donald grumbled.

"Say it, Donald."

Donald grumbled twice as loudly.

"Say it, Donald."

"All right, already. 'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.'"

"Good for you!"

"I hate you."

"So we're going fishing if it's not raining, or what?"

"No!" Donald snarled. "Why in Walt's name didn't we see this planet when we've been on this route so many times before?"

Sora replied, "To be fair, Donald, we've been kind of on edge for the past week or so." His hand brushed against graffiti Donald had scrawled on a fuse box in the corner: 'No mute button, no CD changer and too much Air Supply make Donald go crazy.' "What's to say it hasn't been there all along and we've just missed it?"

Donald shook his head. "Not likely. Not even Goofy would miss something that big. So, are we gonna land or what?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Jiminy said to no one in particular.

Goofy yawned. "Well, I got a sleepy feeling."

"Me too." Donald followed suit.

Sora drifted off to sleep before he could say anything.

"Wake up! Wake up! I think we crash landed!" Goofy shook Sora's shoulders violently.

Sora's reply: "Thanks, mother. I'll take two, with extra butter."

"This is serious, Sora. Wake up."

"Huh?" Sora's eyes were crusty enough to warrant him rubbing them a few times before they allowed themselves to adjust to the light.

"We crashed," said Jiminy. "I don't know what happened. One minute, we were all up there, talking about the new planet, and the next, we went to sleep. When I woke up, we were on the ground."

"You call this ground?" Donald was already up. "This is spongecake!"

"We crashed in a swamp, see," said Jiminy. "That's why the ship didn't break up on impact. I think we were able to glide pretty far before we hit. It's a miracle we didn't smash into anything."

"Now we're soggy, and all our stuff is ruined." Donald's glass was half empty.

"At least we're all okay," said Sora.

His tune changed when he noticed a spot on his arm that had, for reasons beyond what his island education allowed him to grasp, turned a dark shade of purple.

"Ouch," he said, quickly learning the first rule of dealing with bruises: When tempted to poke one with a nearby sharp stick, resist. "Donald!"

Donald waved his staff. "A little cure magic, and you'll be right as rain. Abracadabra!"

Nothing happened.

"Alacazam! Bippity boppity boo! Hocus pocus!" Still nothing. The duck waved the staff over the bruise. "Out, out, dumb spot!" The lack of results clearly irritated Donald.

"Whatever it is, it's not going away," observed Sora.

"Why won't my cure magic work?" Donald stomped up and down.

Goofy was dragging out one of the spare tents. "Looks like we're stuck here for a while."

Donald perked up. "I'll light the campfire! Sora, get some firewood!"

Sora's options were either expend time and energy protesting or let Donald boss him around and silently plot how to get him back later. He chose the latter, then spent the next few minutes scouring the muck for a twig. He found one and bent down to pick it up, but it promptly disappeared.

"Help! I think I've gone blind!" Sora found his face covered in a mass of course, unruly fur. "I think it's a bear, or a marmoset, or a three-toed sloth, or something."Sora thrust his hand against his assailant and managed to remove it from his field of vision.

"Uh, Sora, I think that's just your hair."

"My hair?" Sora trudged over to the plate glass window to see what his reflection could tell him. Gone were the spikes that had been his second more salient characteristic (after the amazingly impractical clown shoes he wore for no apparent reason). His entire mane had fallen flat. Flattish. Or maybe more like a tangled mess. Or a jungle. The important thing was that it had fallen over his eyes, rendering it (barely) the most impractical thing about his current appearance.

"I swear it's never done this before," Sora insisted. No one else could offer any evidence to the contrary.

"Sora, young man, I think we'd best be getting you to a barber."

Sora looked quizzical. "A what?"

"A barber. He's the one who takes out his pair of scissors and trims your hair down so it's nice and neat, like a good little boy's should."

"A what?"

"A barber!" Donald and Goofy chimed in this time.

"I've never heard of one. And scissors? I know my dad used to just use a machete."  
"Didn't your mom put a stop to that when he sliced up her ear?" Donald had, against his will, heard lots of Destiny Island stories when Sora talked in his sleep. "It doesn't look like you've had your hair cut in many, many years."

"Fine, we'll get one of these barbers. It won't hurt, will it?"

"It hurts me more to see you looked like a younger, scrawnier version of Leon."

Goofy added, "With itty bitty little legs."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The visible part of Sora's face went red.

"Enough, you guys," chirped Jiminy. "We need to build us a fire. While you were busy squabbling, I got us some firewood. Donald, you do the honors."

"Indeed I shall," said Donald, pointing his staff where Jiminy indicated and chanting his usual arcane incantation. "Fire in the hole!"

This was usually the cue for everyone to leap out of the way or risk coming out of the ordeal with a blackened and charred face, but for some reason, Donald's magic still appeared to be out to lunch. Sora was suddenly demoted to "Second Most Angry Person in the Area."

"Waaaak!"

"Gawrsh, what's wrong with Donald's magic? First his cure spell didn't work, and now this!"

Jiminy pondered the question for a moment. "I really don't know, but I'll wager it has something to do with the strange world we've landed in."

"You mean there's no magic here?"  
"Right. I think that's also why Sora's hair is a mess. Without magic, his Wonderlocks Magic Hair Gel can't function, can it?"

"Hey!" Sora looked offended. "At least I didn't forget to apply it this week."

"Sora," said Jiminy, "I think we all remember the awful time we had when Cloud stole your hair gel supply. Let's try not to bring that up again, shall we?"

"Sorry," Sora said, hanging his head in shame and then suddenly jerking it back up so he could see again.

"Okay, then." Jiminy seemed to have the coolest head of the bunch. "If we don't have a fire, we should head out and start exploring the area. Sticking around here sure won't do us any good."

"Oh, gawrsh, I think we should get us a traveling song, if we're going to be moving out." Goofy looked hopeful.

"No singing!" Donald did not look hopeful.

"Not even Air Supply? I was just getting good at their music."

"Especially not Air Supply!"  
"I'm all out of—"

Thwack!

Goofy massaged the lump on his head as the group marched toward a sign, which read:

Pepperland, California 

_Population: _

_20,000 humans_

_200 dirty hippies_

_5 grizzly bears_

_1 snake_

_uncountably many spiders_

End of Chapter 1


	2. Must Come Off

Chapter 2: Must come off 

Disclaimer: Pepperland is a fictional town. Any resemblance to a real town is coincidental.

The party entered the tiny town of Pepperland, strolling down the sidewalk. The open, unadulterated strip mall atmosphere of the place starkly contrasted with the claustrophobic effect Traverse Town had on its tourists. The buildings were glass and steel, mingled with the occasional brick. The roads were clogged with angry motorists.

It's been said that golf is a nice walk spoiled by a small, round, solid, white object. Our heroes' walk was spoiled by a pack of large, shapeless, ephemeral, black shadows; Heartless. The standard procedure for such encounters was to whip out their weapons, bash the offending critters over the head, wash, rinse, and repeat. This time was no different from any other and victory came easily. Instead of yellow and blue pieces of munny, the Heartless left behind pieces of green paper with the faces of dead US presidents on the front. Andrew Jackson would have been glad to be out of the hands of those filthy heartless rustlers. Unfortunately, he wasn't around, so the threesome had to settle for rescuing George Washington.

"Hey, this munny looks funny!" complained Donald.

"Donald, that rhymes! A-hyuck!" Goofy observed.

"Shut up, dumb dog!" Donald raised his staff to strike Goofy, but the dumb dog ducked in time. Donald spun one hundred and eighty degrees and hit an approaching Heartless. The shadow burst into a shower of dollar bills.

"Ever notice that we're taking money from them?" Jiminy said. "It's stealing! Stealing is wrong!"

No one replied at first.

"That didn't stop Leon from trying to take the Keyblade from me in Traverse Town," said Sora.

Jiminy nodded and made a note in his journal: _Upon returning to Traverse Town, lecture Leon on proper etiquette and morals, i.e., don't attack a child in the middle of a crowded town with an unregistered gunblade. _He looked up and spotted a striped pole in front of a shop. "Come on, Sora. Let's get that hair tamed."

"It did bother me during the fight," Sora admitted.

"That settles it," Jiminy said firmly, before Goofy or especially Donald could object. "We're going to that barbershop right there." e during the fight," Sora admitted.

"That settles it," Jiminy said firmly, before Goofy or especially Donald could object. "We're going to that barber shop right there."

Goofy read the sign on the shop's door. "Curl Up & Dye Hair Salon. Sounds inviting." He opened the door and let the others file in.

There was only one barber on duty. "May I help you children?"

"Children!" Donald raised his staff, but Goofy grabbed his wrist before he could swing. "Let go!"

The barber ignored him and turned to Sora. "How much do you want off?"

"Just enough to make him stop looking like a young hippie," Donald said.

Sora found a use for his oversized yellow shoes – stomping on the bare feet of annoying ducks.

"Waaak!" Donald assumed his angry pose: hopping on one foot, kicking with the other, one fist straight out, and the other fist swinging wildly. "He wants you to shave him bald."

Sora defensively covered his hair with his hands. "No. Just six inches. And I want the bangs gone."

The barber decided to listen to Sora and snipped away at the brown hair with his scissors. "Voila! You look like one of the Beat—er, Mop Tops. I remember when people thought their hair was way too long, and then men started growing hair to their waists." He sighed, noticed that his shift was over and wandered to his Volkswagen Rutle and drove off.

Goofy's stomach growled loudly. "Gawrsh, we just ate yesterday. Why am I hungry again?"

"When we were sealing Keyholes, we hardly stopped anywhere to eat," Sora pointed out.

"I'm hungry too!" said Donald.

The party walked farther down the street, bypassing a bookshop, three Starbucks, an office building, a police station, another Starbucks, and a clothing store. Finally, they stopped in front of General Confucius Chinese Cuisine and stepped inside.

The manager greeted them, looking flustered. "We're short several waiters, so I'll be your server…oh, you must be the delivery boy bringing a fresh supply of food."

It was at that moment Donald noticed the restaurant motto on the wall: "Confucius says if you want more luck, eat more duck!" His feathers flushed red. "Waaaaaaak!" The angry duck drew his staff and brought it down on the manager's head.

The hapless manager went down, alive but unconscious.

"Why didn't he see stars?" Goofy asked. "Or birds?"

"Why is he still down?" Donald asked.

"Sora," Jiminy began. "I think we should run."

Sora agreed, defining the better part of valor. "I think so too."

All four screamed and ran out, Goofy going first with his shield in front of him, but forgetting to open the glass door.

End Chapter 2


	3. Down and Out in Pepperland

Chapter 3

Down and Out in Pepperland

Goofy slowed down. Donald and Sora didn't stop; they banged into Goofy in a reversal of the red Trinity action.

Jiminy didn't bother to comment on the conservation of momentum. "So now what? We're still hungry."

"He had it coming," said Donald, referring to the manager he had hit on the crown.

"So where can we stop to eat?" Sora asked.

The party looked around the street. The smiling plastic face of Stan "The Grocery Man" Smith, founder of Smith's Market, the largest grocery store in all of Pepperland, gazed back at the party from its perch atop the building there. The solution to their hunger woes became suddenly obvious.

xxx

Inside, life was not so simple as one would think it should be in someplace as innocuous as a grocery store. The main complications were provided by throngs of kids who all seemed to want to have their pictures taken with Donald and Goofy. Oh yeah, and Sora, too, if he insisted, but who the heck was he, anyway?

"Cast members," an annoyed parent commented when he saw what he assumed was a group of three Disneyland employees. "They don't even bother changing out of their costumes."

The smiles of the kids in the front of the pack were little consolation to Donald as long as he had to put up with the twin terrors of the noisiness and smelliness of all the kids behind them. Heck, the kids in front weren't exactly wearing perfume, either. Some deadbeat parents needed to give certain nearby children "The Talk." You know, the talk every parent has to give at some point in the kid's development, informing the kid that those who don't use deodorant really, _really _stink.

Donald hated kids, his nephews above all. Lousy nephews. Always ruining his dates with Daisy, filling his scrumptious pies with volcanic mustard, destroying the interior of his car by transforming it into a makeshift aquarium, and stoutly refusing to give him a family discount while he was out buying items to help him _save the entire universe from the Heartless_. Saving the universe. Yep. That's what he was doing, and his bratty nephews couldn't even give him a free sample of Ether. And whose idiotic idea was it to let them run a store that sold weapons? These are the same kids who once nearly killed him with snow, and they got to sell firearms. He was going to chew out Dumbella for having those darn pains in the tailfeathers.

Jiminy Cricket managed to escape the maelstrom of noise and stickiness and odd smells that followed the crowd of children, but he was merely, so to speak, out of the frying pan. The fire came in the form of the health inspector, who was none to pleased to see a giant cockroach bounding about the premises unimpeded. This store was apparently messy enough that the roaches wore fancy clothes and had time to learn to speak. Something had to be done.

Jiminy made the mistake of running past a magazine rack in his efforts to get to safety. Armed with a rolled up copy of _Sports Illustrated_, the inspector became twice as dangerous. Twice in the first twenty seconds, Jiminy was nearly smashed by an image of an overly enthusiastic-looking Venus Williams. The irony of the situation was that Williams was far enough over the hill that Jiminy would have been about the first thing she successfully smashed in a while. Losing to some teenager at the French Open didn't help her any.

The best hiding place Jiminy could find was down the cereal aisle.

What most people don't know about cereal aisles is that they are like miniature apartment complexes for roaches. Each box contains enough room and enough food to support a roach family of four for several weeks before anyone could even notice the difference. They simply go in through the bottom of the box, make themselves at home for a while, snacking on crumbs, and then they leave just before the box gets sold. They've had a cereal real estate racket going for decades right under the noses of health inspectors around the world.

Jiminy was probably the only one in the world who could be happy to discover the roach houses, and then only because of the extenuating circumstances. From safe inside a box of Apple Jacks, he was able to watch the inspector stroll right by without suspecting a thing. A few annoyed looks and an angry scratch on his checkpad later, he gave up and went off to check the expiration dates on the frozen chickens. Jiminy stuck around long enough to see the waves of children around Donald and Goofy slow to a trickle and finally stop, thanks in part to Donald's being too grumpy to sign autographs.

XXX

Over on the other side of the store, Sora asked to whoever would answer, "What was that all about?"

"They think we're actors," said Donald. "Do I look like an actor? I'm a real duck. I look like a real duck to you, don't I, Sora?"

"Of course you do, Donald," Sora said.

"Then why the papparazzi treatment?"

"The pepperoni meat?" Goofy smacked his lips.

"Papparazi," said Donald. "Cameras."

"Gawrsh, Donald, I figured it was 'cause we're so pretty."

"Forget pretty! I'm still hungry. Let's split up and shop."

XXX

Nothing ever came easily to Goofy. Not skiing. Not baseball. Not horseback riding. Not fancy parties. Not brain surgery. (Don't ask.) It stood to reason that he would have some nontraditional difficulties while trying out the everyday task of grocery shopping. The first of those presented itself in the middle of aisle three: a cleanup mop and bucket.

Goofy's first instinct was, for some reason, to grab the mop and twirl it around like a dance partner. What could possibly go wrong? For starters, there was the bucket, which was sitting right where Goofy's left foot (one of the two) ended up at the beginning of the third bar of the imaginary waltz music. This was unfortunate because the bucket was full of water, the floor was wet, and the bucket didn't get great traction with the floor anyway. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Goofy's work could predict that he would slip and fall and break something. In this case, he managed only to hit his head on the floor, making himself more than a bit dizzy.

He then realized that he was on the wrong aisle, unless he could suddenly develop an appetite for cat food. Even in his dazed state, he realized how unlikely that was, so he went off to find something slightly more edible. He felt like pickles.

Ah, pickles, the potato chips of the health conscious. Goofy had heard much about their legendary flavor, and he figured they wouldn't taste half bad, either. Equally legendary in stature was Goofy's lack of hand-eye coordination, so the pickles were doomed from the get-go. Smash. Right on the floor, at least fifteen jars.

Clean up in aisle ten! The intercom's reaction was almost immediate.

A few seconds later, Goofy's met his old nemesis, the mop and bucket, again. It wasn't pretty.

XXX

Sora, though less clumsy than some of the others in the party, was even more clueless in some ways. The fruit aisle, in particular, had him baffled. He was used to having a wide assortment of tropical fruits. Weird, small fruits like grapes and strawberries seemed strange and exotic to him. Paopu fruits were nowhere to be seen. Nor were coconuts.

Luckily for his stomach (and those of the party members too clumsy to find their own food), Sora came across the bakery section. Jackpot. Pastries. Pies. Cakes. Bread. Uh, more bread. Sora, now rich from having slain so many Heartless, took as much as he could carry, rounded up his team, and made for the checkout lines. Donald was the most difficult to catch; he was curled up in the fetal position near the frozen food aisle, muttering something about what some bad, bad person must have done to all the poor chickens.

XXX

"Well, now, we're not hungry anymore, but we're still lost." Jiminy, to Donald's extreme annoyance, was playing the role of leader. "Anybody have any ideas on what to do next?"

Donald was pessimistic, which is to say he was acting like his usual self. "Even if we get back to the Gummi Ship, it's not going to fly. The thing's splattered all over the ground."

"Gawrsh, couldn't we find an engineer or something? Chip and Dale could get the thing shipshape in no time flat."

"In the meantime," Sora said, "we've got a keyhold to find."

"A keyhole?" Donald was still thinking about food and splattered Gummi. "Oh, yeah. Of course."

"Where would we start looking for one of those?" Jiminy was being practical now.

"Same place King Mickey would look," said Goofy. "The question is, where is that? We've got to start thinking like King Mickey."

"Hey, mister!" Goofy shouted in the general direction of a formerly disinteresed pedestrian. "We're a bit lost, you see, and we were wondering if you could tell us if you've seen King Mickey anywhere."

_You idiot_, though Donald.

"That way," said the man, pointing to a road sign.

Lo and behold, the sign had painted on it three things: an arrow pointing northeast, an image of King Mickey's royal seal, and the word _Disneyland_.

"Waaaaaak!" Donald expressed his shock as well as anyone could. "The k-king is h-here?"

"Looks that way," said Sora. "Let's follow the arrow and see where it leads."


	4. Furnishings by Ikea and Alice Cooper

Chapter 4

Not all was sunny in southern California. Some of the deeper, more mysterious corners of the state had been undefiled by solar contact for centuries. Havens of the foulest, scariest demons the world has ever known (prime examples being the succubus and Vincent Price), these spawn points of evil lay mostly in the more remote wooded areas – at least, those remote wooded areas with the most evil trees.

Your basic evil tree comes in three varieties. The first is what you would find in a jungle. Owing to the fact that most of its intimidation factor derives from the fauna living in the foliage rather than the trees themselves, these are probably the least frightening of the group. Occupying the middle of the pack are the leafless, prickly trees, the likes of which Prince Phillip cut through on his way to battle Maleficent in _Sleeping Beauty_. These trees can be dangerous even without any assistance from predatorial animals nesting in them, so they warrant more caution than jungle trees. Most sinister of all are the pure evil trees. These are not so barren as their prickly cousins, so they can hide any number of traps and/or villains in their branches, and they can also be someone unpleasant to cut through. They get their _pure_ evil label from the rumors that they sometimes act as something more than innocent (or malevolent) bystanders, opting instead to strangle or eat passengers. Whether or not the pure evil trees really can more, they at least look like they might, so they add an extra few points of terror to any would-be hero unfortunate enough to be walking in the woods at night. The evil woods.

It so happened that southern California was home to a particular evil wood, known to a few as Nightmare Forest. What made Nightmare Forest special was known to even fewer: underneath it was hidden a place so evil that no priest would dare speak its name without a nearby shower running Holy Water. This fortress of malefaction, this stronghold of sin, this residence of pestilence, this rampart of wrongdoing, this locality of obduracy, stood witness to more foul plots than an out-of-the-way smoke-filled room filled with crooked politicians, Mafioso scumbags, and ill-tempered jealous soccer moms. This place was called Dakota Castle.

On the path – if something nearly invisible and unwalkable could be called that – leading to the front gate of Dakota Castle walked Hayden Panettierre, the Ice Princess. The evil trees respected her. Those whose thorny branches would obstruct the passage of nearly any other traveler shifted into a more navigable position and saluted the Ice Princess as she passed. Even those not directly in her way paid some mind to her. After all, she held one of the highest ranks available at Dakota Castle, and her job involved a lot of torturing and killing.

The front gate was less obsequious, but only slightly. The Ice Princess had to let the biometric identification machine scan her hands and her eyes before she could pass through, but when she checked out okay, a recording of a cordial greeting message played through a hidden loudspeaker. The Ice Princess may or may not have noticed, but she wasn't telling.

The way up from the gate to the door of Castle Dakota consisted of some halfheartedly paved mud and rocks followed by a slimy bridge over some waters that could only be described accurately by a minimum of five synonyms for _murky_. Lit up eyes belonging to vermin that must have evolved excellent night vision kept watch on the path. Jittery crawly things, most likely extremely venomous, scuttled from one side of the path to the other. A low murmur rose from some of the darker spots off to the side as the Ice Princess came into view; whatever was making the noise sounded like it could have been talking and could have been growling, and what made it creepier was how it could have been both feral enough to growl and intelligent enough to talk. Almost everything about the scenery, in fact, seemed aware of and hostile to anything that didn't belong there.

Fortunately for her, the Ice Princess fit right in.

Something in the moat liked the Ice Princess enough to welcome her with some muck it spat onto the side of the bridge. A dozen birds of some uncatalogued species scattered from the doorframe was she approached it. She dug into her shirt and pulled out a magnetic key on a chain around her neck, and then she pressed it against a receptor where a doorbell might have been. With a groan that could have woken the dead (and in this corner of the world, that wasn't so far-fetched), entrance to Dakota Castle swung open.

Dakota Castle's foyer made the outdoor scenery look like the land of the Teletubbies. In most houses, a guest might be shocked to see a spider web in the corner. Guests at Dakota Castle would have been pleasantly surprised to find a corner _without_ a spider web. Most of the resident spiders were at least as big as a grown man's hand. Paintings depicting grim subjects torn from the twisted minds of madmen perched on the walls, and most of them looked both alive and, if possible, hungry. The furniture, too, looked just peeved enough to be hiding teeth underneath the throw pillows, waiting for an opportunity to chew the limbs off an unwary visitor. The decorations atop every table in the foyer followed, with about half of the wall paintings, a sort of skull motif; it would take an optimist to hope that the tabletop skulls were artificial.

The Ice Princess strode slowly and methodically across a reddish carpet into the middle of the foyer, where she turned right and made for an archway leading to a long hallway. Bats chirped above her, and something resembling a banshee howled in the far distance. The Ice Princess recognized the howl as coming from the Boss, but she was too focused on reaching the hallway to stop to enjoy the music.

Other sounds joined the Boss's voice in the hallway, and while they sounded just as ugly, they were ugly in a different way. The Boss's sang like a bad headache, but the music was happy in its own way. The other sounds seemed to come from people suffering from headaches, or worse. They were the cries of those being tortured. Hearing them brought a small smile to the Ice Princess's face.

The shrieks grew louder as the Ice Princess neared a side passage. Just inside the passage, a flight of stairs led down to the castle dungeon. The Ice Princess put on her best work face, ground her teeth together a few times, took a deep breath, and began her descent.

Another day of punishing dissidents and traitors had begun.


	5. Yes, We're Goin' To a Party, Party

Chapter 5

"Gawrsh, Sora, these arrows sure are confusing!" Goofy scratched his head.

"No kidding!" said Sora. "Most of these signs don't make any sense. No passing? Merge? Yield to peds? I don't even know what a 'ped' is!"

"Whatever it is, is sure smells good," said Donald. "Let's follow that smell and get us some peds!"

"If you say so," said Sora. "I could go for a bite to eat, myself. Say, Goofy, on a scale of one to ten, how hungry would you say you are?"

"Me?" said Goofy. "I'll say about an eight. I'll bet those peds are good enough to drop my hunger at least 1000 points!"

"A thousand, huh?" said Sora. "I'd say a thousand is good for the first ped I see, but on my second time around, I'll bet it's worth at least 2000."

"That's pretty ambitious," said Goofy. "I'm gonna go get me some peds for 2000 points, then!"

"Race ya!" said Sora. "You too, Donald."

But Donald wasn't there.

"Donald?" Sora looked around.

"Over here!" said Donald from the front steps of a building from which the delicious aroma emanated. "While you two are talking about racing, I'm gonna get my food first."

"Wait up," said Goofy, and the rest of the crew followed Donald to what appeared, upon closer inspection, to be the front door of a residential building. More specifically, it was a house, and more specifically still, it was a house with both sound and smell detectable from the outside. The smell resembled that of a bakery, and the sound resembled that of a party.

"Sora," said Donald, "do you think a ped is a kind of bread?"

"Let's find out," said Sora, who then turned the knob on the door and walked in.

Inside, a whole horde of children of various ages turned their heads in unison to the door. Most of the seven faces in the living room displayed expressions that could accurately be described as gawking at the uninvited guests. Clearly, Sora and company had interrupted a girl tearing open the wrapping paper on a gift box, two toddlers throwing some sort of dinner rolls at each other, a set of young triplet boys skipping around the girl in a circle, and another young boy gazing longingly at a multilayered cake standing on top of a table over to the side. The cake smelled warm.

"So a ped is a cake," said Donald. "Good deal."

"What's that?" said one of the triplets. "Big and hairy, dumb as an ox – must be one of Mira's guests. Miii-raaaa! Your boooooyfriend's here!"

The girl took a moment to get over the shock of someone she'd never seen before waltzing into her home, and then she slapped either the boy who spoke or one of the two who looked just like him. She didn't' appear to care which it was.

"I've never even seen any of those guys before," Mira huffed. "Come to think of it," she turned to Sora, "what are you doing here? Are you robbers?"

"No…" said Sora.

"Oh," said Mira, "then you must be here on a Disneyland promotional advertisement. I know what those are about."

"Uh, no," said Sora.

"Ooh, then Daddy must have hired you to perform at my party! Come to think of it, you look just like the kid from one of the video games my kid brother is always playing."

"That Sora from _Kingdom Hearts_!" shouted the boy who had been staring at the cake. "It's Sora! It's really Sora! Can I have your autograph, mister?"

"Gawrsh," said Goofy, "Sora's getting attention from girls, and he's getting young boys to ask for his autograph. This trip's working out nicely for him so far."

"Cut it out, you guys," said Sora.

"You're here to entertain, then?" said Mira.

"I'm not an entertainer," said Sora, "and I don't know what a Kingdom Heart is. Really, we're all just hungry, and we thought you could spare us some peds."

"Peds?"

"Cake!" said Goofy.

"Oh, cake!" said Mira. "Uh, you seem nice, and you're about my age. Why not?"

"Yippie!" Donald jumped several feet into the air and waved his arms wildly! "Now you're talking!"

"It's my birthday, you know," said Mira. "It'll be nice to have someone come to my party for once."

"Who are all these guys, then?" said Sora. "It looks like you have lots of friends."

"Who, these?" said Mira. "They're not friends. I'm not even completely sure they're human. You see, they're my obnoxious little brothers."

Donald snickered. "I know how obnoxious little tykes can be. You have my sympathy, Miss Mira."

"Miss?" she said. "Oh, please, call me Mira. I'm no princess."

"You look like one," said Sora, noticing for the first time that Mira bore more than a casual resemblance to Kairi. She had roughly the same eyes and hair and facial structure, though she dressed differently. Sora also noticed that Mira's face turned a shade of pink upon hearing him.

"Miss Mira," said Goofy, "we would love to have some cake at your party, but we really don't have that much time to stop and eat. We're on a mission to find King Mickey."

"Oh," said Mira. "I didn't realize that. You're just lost and hungry. I see how it is."

"You don't have to be like that," said Sora. "If you really want, you can come with us. We're used to taking along guests, and you probably know this place better than we do."

"Are you inviting me to go with you to Disneyland?" Mira's expression brightened.

"If that's where King Mickey is," said Sora, "then that's where we're going to go, and you're more than welcome to come along with us."

Mira just about bubbled over with glee. She clasped her hands together, smiled like she was taking morphine intravenously, and hopped up and down twice. "Let me go get dressed!" she said, and then she ran upstairs.

"Sora," said Jiminy Cricket, peering out from Sora's pocket, "what are you thinking? You know you really shouldn't, how do you say, play the field like that, right?"

"Huh?"  
"You've already got a girlfriend in Kairi, and now you've invited this new girl out on a date."

"Who cares as long as we get cake out of it?" said Donald.

"Sora should care!" insisted Jiminy. "I can assure you that Kairi does."

"Is it really a date?" said Sora.

"You and I both know it is," said Jiminy, "and no amount of rationalizing is going to get you out of this one. As your conscience, I really can't stand for this sort of thing."

"We'll see what Mira thinks," said Sora.

And then, as if in response to Sora's statement, a door opened somewhere, and Mira appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a shimmering purple dress, reflective earrings, and what looked like a dab of makeup on her cheeks. Sora found himself unable to speak.

"How do I look?" said Mira. "And more importantly, are you ready to go?"


	6. Twilight

Chapter 6

Sora, Goofy, Donald, and Jiminy sat on a bench near one of Disneyland's many outdoor eateries, talking earnestly.

"But you're already got a girlfriend!" Jiminy Cricket scowled at Sora.

"I do?"

"Kairi! You haven't forgotten her already, have you?"

"I could never forget Kairi, ever," said Sora. "It's not possible. And this isn't a date, anyway."

"I've seen the way you look at her," said Donald. "Same way I look at Daisy."

"And the same way you looked at all those ladies in bathing suits down in Acapulco," said Goofy. "Remember that? You were quite the dandy back then."

Donald's face turned red, but whether that was from embarrassment or anger was not clear. He shouted something that might have been a denial, punctuated by his hopping up and down on one foot and waving his right arm in a circle. Goofy shrugged nonchalantly.

Jiminy looked unimpressed. "Regardless of what Goofy did or didn't do in Mexico, you already have a responsibility to be loyal to Kairi. Yet, here you are, on a date with Mira."

"I told you," said Sora, "it's not a date."

"Why are you holding her hand, then?"

Sora ducked his head away so he couldn't see Jiminy's sternly wagging finger. With no adequate response to Jiminy's question, he found himself looking for a change of subject. It came in the form of Mira returning with four ice cream cones in tow.

"Mira!" said Sora. "You got chocolate?"

"Chocolate for you, peanut butter for Donald, mango kiwi for Goofy, and strawberry for me." Mira took a lick off the top of her cone. Sora noted that the pink ice cream complemented her rosy cheeks.

"Thanks!" said Donald without taking his eyes off of the mass of brown sludge piled atop his cone. Goofy reached for his snack before bothering with thanking Mira, and he finished half of it within the first minute.

"Oww," he howled. "My head!"

Mira giggled. "You shouldn't eat so fast. You'll get an ice cream headache."

"Now you tell me." Goofy doubled over in pain, clutched his temple with his free hand, and then sat upright and took another oversized bite of his ice cream.  
"Shouldn't what, now?"

Mira sat down next to Sora and put her arm around his shoulder. "Your friends are so silly. I'm sure glad we could all spend this wonderful, happy birthday together."

"I'm happy to be with you, too," said Sora. "Really, I am."

"That's great," said Mira. She took a lick of strawberry ice cream and leaned her head against Sora's shoulder. "Better hurry up, though. We've got lots to see. You say you've never been here before, right?"  
"Never," said Sora. "We're not from around here."

"You just met those guys recently, then?" Mira looked puzzled. "I figured they would have given you a tour before."

"Huh?" said Sora.

"Yeah," said Donald, "we met recently. Though Goofy and I used to work at the, uh, other amusement park. Yeah, that's it. So we've never been here before, either."

"Disney World?" Mira's puzzlement faded.

"Yeah, Disney World," said Donald. "I'd forgotten the name."

Mira just laughed. "Funny people like you _would_ be the ones to work at a place like this, wouldn't you?"

"That's us," said Goofy. "We're funny to the end."

"Right," said Sora. "To the end."

XXX

"Is it supposed to be so dark?" Sora couldn't help but feel a slight chill as his boat carried him and Mira into the depths of the Tunnel of Love.

"Of course it is," said Mira. "That way, there's no distractions."

"No distractions from what?" Sora wondered.

"From us," said Mira. "It's just us two, along and unfettered, traveling down the highway of life and cruising under a tunnel. A special tunnel. The Tunnel of Love."

"Sounds kind of cheesy," said Sora.

"Don't talk like that," said Mira. "This is supposed to be special."

"Sorry," said Sora. "The dark just makes me a little nervous, that's all."

"And you're making fun of it to make it less scary?"

"I guess that's it."

Sora couldn't see Mira's eyes brighten at his words, but he could almost feel them. "That's not the best way. Sit closer to me. I'll keep you safe."

Sora flinched as Mira drew nearer and snuggled up to his side, weighing in his mind the potential consequences of telling Mira just what about the darkness scared him so much.

XXX

A few hundred feet away, Goofy walked through the turnstile at the entrance to a bumper car ride for, he estimated, the eighth time in the past hour and a half. Though the jostling and thumping had taking somewhat of a toll on his ability to see the world clearly, to say nothing of his sense of balance, he found that he just couldn't pull himself away. For the first time in a long while, he had found an activity at which he was the undisputed king. No one else in the arena could take a beating like he could.

Yet, the other seemed to be figuring that fact out. As the afternoon wore on, fewer and fewer people stood in line with him, and lately, there weren't even enough to man all of the cars. Goofy assumed they were shying away because they were tired of being humiliated. Though the concept of not wanting to be humiliated any long didn't quite register in Goofy's mind, it was the best explanation he could come up with, and it was the only one he entertained until the ride operator jerked him out of his fantasyland.

"This ride is closing," said the pimply faced boy working the front of the line.

"Closing?" Goofy's heart sank. "Can't I just ride it alone?"

"No one will be riding any more today," said the boy. "Move along. Go home. I don't care."

XXX

Donald couldn't take much bumper car abuse from Goofy, so he sat alone on the bench where he had eaten his ice cream. In fact, he had been sitting there for well over an hour while Sora, Mira, and Goofy entertained themselves elsewhere. He did not resent staying behind, though. Rather, he had taken up the sport of people watching.

The people in this new world seemed so utterly alien to him that they turned his mind in knots just by walking by and innocuously following their local customs. He was under the impression that parents brought their kids to Disneyland to entertain them, but the vast majority of the kids he watched looked unhappy. There was certainly an inverse relationship between age and happiness, though that relationship was far from easy to determine. The best he could say was that the youngest of kids all looked unhappy, and the older kids were less likely to cry. The parents looked invariably bothered, whether they were chasing down errant toddlers or purchasing overpriced food or recovering from a particularly jarring ride.

The rides, also, made no sense. Their size and the number of billboards advertising them gave Donald the impression that they were one of the main reasons for the park to exist, but he could not figure out why someplace whose main attractions were machines whose job was to shake, disorient, and jolt guests into probably neck cramps could have the word _amusement_ in its name. Amusement park? The place was about as amusing as a picnic with Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

He was sure, too, that operating hours for the park ran from early in the morning until late at night, but within the past fifteen minutes or so, he had noticed the crowds thinning considerably. He could not determine the cause, as his first hypothesis, that they were all going to dinner, seemed wrong. It wasn't dinner time, and the restaurants were all eerily empty.

Another thing that had been bothering Donald since he first arrived in the park, yet had remained eluding him for most of the day, was that throughout the entire park, he heard no music. None. Nobody playing anything over a speaker. Nobody with a radio. Nobody humming as they walked. Nothing.

He wanted to pack that observation away as simply another strange custom of the land, but he couldn't quite convince himself that it was normal. Something about it screamed _unnatural_ at him, and he found the lack of explanation for it even more troubling.

He then saw something more troubling still. At first, he didn't quite know what it was, but something a couple of eateries over caught his eye. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the something looked quite like a duck. A duck wearing a sailor outfit and a small blue cap. In fact, the duck he saw looked remarkably like the duck he saw in the mirror every morning back home.

His curiosity piqued, Donald left his bench to follow the strange new duck. When he was about fifty feet away, he could make out that it was carrying a fist full of strings attached to balloons for handing out to small children. A smile of the kind one sees only on the deranged or the hopelessly naïve sat etched permanently on the stranger's face, daring him to come closer. People around devoted all of their attention to the giddy balloon duck. As he came nearer, Donald couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy.

But that disappeared, replaced with a shot of adrenaline, when the Donald look-a-like spotted him. The real Donald could see the imposter do a quick double take and then excuse himself from his crowd. A few seconds later, the Donald doppelganger walked as quickly as he could toward an uninviting fence behind one of the restaurant buildings. Donald followed him.

The doppelganger periodically turned his head back, and each time he saw his pursuer, he quickened his pace. Donald followed suit, even though it brought him to what he was sure was a restricted section. First a restricted section, anyway. Then and out-of-the-way corner of a restricted section, and then a dark, abandoned alley.

The imposter Donald stopped. The real Donald slowed down and stared as hard as he could and the figure in front of him, watching as it turned around and met his gaze. Then, in a move Donald did not expect in the slightest, its mouth opened up.

The inside of the mouth of the Donald costume, as Donald assumed it must have been, was pitch black. It was the kind of black that could swallow a murder of crows. It was the kind of black that could make an astronomer blush. It was the kind of black that almost glowed.

As the mouth opened wider, the blackness spilled out into the air around it, like smoke. It ran onto the rest of the suit and down the ground, where it collected in a pool of pure night. The level of the pool rose steadily up the sides of the legs and then the body and finally the head, engulfing the costume and leaving no trace of its Donald-like features. Even its shape disappeared until the darkness. Donald stood transfixed as the mass of black swelled and throbbed, until finally a pair of red eyes appeared about where the mouth had been.

Without saying a word, Donald readied his staff.

XXX

Everywhere in the park, the remaining guests dashed to and fro, each desperate to escape the horrifying dark creatures overrunning the place. Goofy and Donald fought as bravely as they could, but no one else had seen Heartless before, and in any case, no one else seemed to have any means of driving them off. Most were of the small and relatively easily vanquished variety, but a few were stronger, and they all posed a clear threat to the unarmed population. More than a few innocent bystanders found that out the hard way.

Accompanying the ruckus was something neither Donald nor Goofy normally associated with Heartless attacks—an incredibly loud, piercing screech, which had remained at a constant decibel level for several minutes. Its source seemed to be a series of transparent apparitions flitting high above the park grounds themselves. Donald noticed that the noisy things appeared to be making a systematic scan of every area they came across, as if they were in search of a particular target.

Donald's magic remained ineffective, but his staff still remained an effective way to beat off any attackers. Goofy had even less trouble. Neither, however, could reach the shrieking ghosts, and both found themselves wearing down under the strain of incessant battle and headache-inducing noise.

XXX

Mira clung tightly to Sora's feet as their boat pulled out of the Tunnel of Love. Sora stood in his seat and swatted any Heartless that tried to climb aboard. He could not hear Mira's sobs of fright over the awful din of the screech ghosts, as he called them. As bad as the Heartless were, he hated the screech ghosts worse.

After several minutes of intensive fighting, Sora managed to clear the boat, leaving Mira free to collapse on the floor and cover her ears with her hands. Sora felt like doing the same, as the screeching seemed to grow louder by the second, but he could not bring himself to put down his Keyblade. Even with the first wave of Heartless vanquished, he couldn't take the chance of having something take him by surprise.

The noise proved a worse enemy than the Heartless, however, and Sora eventually dropped to his knees. Too late, he realized his error.

The second he no longer wielded the Keyblade, a line of four screech ghosts dove towards him. Sora closed his eyes and braced for the worst.

But the worst did not come. Not to Sora. Instead of a killing blow to the back of his head, as he expected, Sora felt nothing but relief when, suddenly, the screeching noise ceased. He opened his eyes and saw the Keyblade intact and, to his surprise, not stolen. Then he looked up.

A hundred feet in the air and rising, a ghost, no longer screeching, carried a girl in an expensive party dress away from the boat, and away from Sora. The ghost did not scream, but the girl did.

And so did Sora.


	7. Hungry Dark Thing

Chapter 7 – Hungry Dark Thing

_Cold. _Mira opened her eyes. She was lying on her back, on something cold. A glance at her shoulders made her realize why she felt cold – she was now wearing a white silk dress. Much thinner than her party dress. _Why? Where am I? _A dungeon, apparently. Her wrists and ankles were chained tightly, keeping her in a spread-eagle position. She tried to summon the strength to move her left wrist, but succeeded only in moving it an inch. The chains clanked softly. The shackles seemed to get heavier with each passing second.

_That's silly. It's just your imagination. _She took a few deep breaths. She was surrounded by four low metal walls to which the chains were hooked, but a tall figure could be seen over them.

The figure came closer. As he neared, Mira wished she had kept her eyes closed. The figure was vaguely humanoid – key word vaguely. The…thing wore a long black cloak. Strange symbols were stitched all over the cloak in white thread. The monster had blazing yellow eyes. No pupils, no whites – just golden circles. The skin was dark gray and scaly. Two fangs protruded from the closed mouth – an overbite that could make even the most experienced orthodontist shudder in disgust. The hands looked human, except each finger had a curved and sharp-looking talon where a fingernail should have been.

"Perfect," said the monster, in a deep voice.

Mira felt the temperature of the room drop at least ten degrees. Her throat felt iced over, as if someone had poured liquid nitrogen down it. No words came out.

"Speechless?" He asked. "I can't find a more befitting sacrifice."

"What?" She finally managed to speak. Tears sprung to her eyes.

The monster simply shook his head and turned to a small table on which there was a large bowl. He took a bottle from a nearby shelf and poured the contents into the bowl. "I've already sampled you. O-negative. My favorite. Though I don't get it very often."

"O-negative…" The horrible thought finally registered. "My…blood? Are you some sort of vampire?"

He burst out laughing. "Vampire? Vampire…ha ha! Do I look like Dracula? You're funny. I wanted to keep you alive as long as possible. So I could withdraw a pint a day. But the boss said no. So I'll have to finish off all six quarts tonight. And I'll savor every drop."

By now, tears were running down Mira's face. "Please…"

"You dare to plead me for your life?" Moloch placed his hand on Mira's cheek, letting the tears run onto his fingers. "I am a god! A god!" He withdrew the hand, and licked it, tasting the tears. "I've already read my texts, prepared the food, and set my table. I used to play music during the ritual, but I've found it's more enjoyable to hear the dying screams." His hand reached to her chest. "Any last words, my lovely?"


	8. Devil in a Blue Dress

Chapter 8 – Devil in a Blue Dress

Although no one seemed to know exactly where the Heartless had taken Mira, they had all retreated in roughly the same direction. Since they traveled by air, they probably had few topographical obstacles to negotiate, so Sora and company judged that the best way to track them down was to set off in the direction they had fled. Their planned looked even better each time they ran into a group of Heartless stragglers; they invariably seemed to be heading in the same direction as the main bunch had earlier.

With no variation in the direction the Heartless moved, Jiminy figured it wouldn't be difficult to track them back to wherever they were taking Mira. That meant they needed less time for figuring out what to do next and more time for Sora to ask stupid questions.

"You're a cricket, right?"

Sora squinted hard at Jiminy, determined to figure out just what it was about his appearance that bothered him so much.

"I am, indeed," said Jiminy. "I've been a cricket since birth. My mother was a cricket. My father was a cricket. Their parents before them were crickets, too. Right on up the family tree, all crickets."

"Why do you only have four legs, then?" said Sora. "I just noticed that. Most bugs have six legs."

Jiminy halted in his tracks. "Are you sure you want to ask that question, Sora?"

"Something about you has always seemed a little strange," Sora admitted. "If we don't get this out in the open now, I may never be at peace."

Jiminy sighed. "Fine, I'll tell you. Of course you know that I wasn't always your travel companion, but did I ever tell you what my job was before I met you?"

"Never thought about it much, actually," said Sora.

"You mean to say that you've been wondering about my appearance without wondering about my past?" said Jiminy. "Did it ever occur to you that the two might be related?"

"Honestly," said Sora, "it never crossed my mind."

Jiminy gave Sora a dirty look. "You need to be more of a critical thinker if you want to succeed in anything, Sora. Don't let Goofy here be your role model."

"Hey!" said Goofy. "I represent that remark."

"Palooka," said Donald.

"Anyway, Sora," said Jiminy, "I used to be a conscience."

"A conscience?" said Donald.

"A conscience," said Goofy. "You know, that little voice inside of your head that tells you when you're about to do something stupid or wrong."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Donald.

"Goofy's right," said Jiminy. "Most humans have a conscience built in, but I was assigned to work for someone who was not human. Not at the time, anyway."  
"Someone like Donald or Goofy?" said Sora.

"No," said Jiminy. "They're pretty close to human. I did my conscience work for a puppet."

"Why would a puppet need a conscience?" said Sora.

"There," said Jiminy. "You're starting to ask more critical questions. That's good of you. In answer, this puppet was a special one. His master once wished upon a magic star that he would come to life so he could have a son, and the Blue Fairy granted his wish. Partially, anyway. For a while, the puppet, whose name was Pinocchio, resembled both a human boy and a wooden boy. I had to guide him in his moral choices until he proved himself worthy of being completely human."

"So far so good," said Sora.

"It worked, too," said Jiminy. "After a few bizarre adventures, Pinocchio showed a sense of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the Blue Fairy made him fully human. That's when the trouble started."

"I thought he proved himself to be good," said Sora. "Didn't you just say?"

"He proved himself human. With that comes the ability to deceive. Apparently, he just acted like he learned to put others before himself. Within a week of being a real boy, he started acting like a real boy. And as we all know, part of being a young boy is…"

Jiminy gulped. Sora finished his sentence for him. "Pulling the legs off bugs!"

"Gee, Sora," said Donald, "you seem awfully familiar with that pastime."

"Oh, yeah," said Sora. "I did plenty of that when I was younger. Still do. I collect dead bugs, I take them apart for examination, I burn ants with a magnifying glass, and…"

For the rest of that leg of the journey, Jiminy Cricket walked at least ten feet away from Sora.

XXX

Mira awoke with a start. She sighed. _Just a nightmare. _She glanced at her surroundings: a dungeon. Gloomy gray walls, minimal furniture, an armed guard on each side of the door. She closed her eyes. _With any luck, I can get back to the nightmare. _

Something interrupted her sleep, though—a voice.

"Interrogation time!" said a guard, a faceless man clad entirely in a suit of iron who had no right to be quite so enthusiastic about his job. "Out of your cell and into your chains, little girl."

Another quick glance at her surroundings revealed no obvious escape plans, and any attempt to argue with someone so gleeful about an upcoming painful event could only do more harm than good, so Mira hung her head and did as she was told. The guard slapped a pair of manacles on her wrists and prodded her back with a lightweight metal spear. In his zeal, he drew some blood.

"Ouch," said Mira. "Do you have to be so rough?"

"When the Ice Princess is through with you," said the guard, "you'll be begging for my hospitality. Now move it."

Mira felt a lump rise in her throat.

XXX

As torture chambers go, the one Mira found herself chained up in didn't seem quite so bad, at least at first. The walls were plain white and featureless except for some audio speakers jutting out of the corners. The floor was blank and cold but not terribly unpleasant to someone standing up. Her chair was hard and decidedly unergonomic, and her chains chafed her wrists and ankles, but the room lacked the dingy dungeon atmosphere of her cell. The guards even seemed in a hurry to leave her alone.

"What is this place?" she asked as her escort finished locking her down and headed for the exit.

"Worse than anything else you could imagine," was all he said as he half walked, half jogged out of the room.

_Sure was in a hurry to get out_, Mira thought. _What could be so scary about this place, though?_

A female voice answered her thoughts from the speakers around her. "Welcome," it said. "Welcome. I'm sure you have many questions for me, but in this place, I am the only one who gets to ask."

"Are you going to hurt me?" said Mira.

"Didn't I just say that you don't get to ask me anything?" said the voice. "But enough about you. It's time for you to meet… ME!"

A formerly invisible panel on the side wall of the room slid open to reveal a short, blonde woman of about twenty years. She wore a shimmering, tight blue dress, and she was armed with a microphone.

"They call me the Ice Princess. I have the power to destroy you with my song if you do not tell me everything I need to know. And, dear Mira, I would like to have a little talk with you."


	9. Just Eat It!

Chapter 9 -- Just Eat It!

The pursuit of the Heartless continued on into the day. The sun arced across the sky into the west as the trio, many miles of streets and shops and houses and miscellaneous urban milieu behind them, finally found themselves slowing down. For a bit, Sora wondered if he would grow tired from the journey, but something other than fatigue finally prompted him to take a break.

"I think my stomach is rumbling," he said to no one in particular.

"Gee, Sora," said Goofy, "either you're right, or there's a volcano about to erupt nearby. A-hyuck!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Sora.

"N-nothing!" said Goofy. "I just think maybe we're all getting a little hungry."

"You said it," said Donald.

Jiminy poked his head out of Donald's shirt pocket. "We're supposed to be chasing those Heartless, Sora. Do you really think it's good idea to stop to eat?"

"No one actually said that yet," said Sora, "but I'm starting to think it's what I want to do. Besides, we won't lose the trail."

"Sora's right," said Goofy. "Every other time we've stopped for some lollygoggling, we've always picked up right where we left off, no matter how long we took."

"I think you mean 'lollygagging,'" said Donald.

"That's what I said. Lollygoggling."

Donald frowned. "Lollygagging!"

"No time for that," said Sora. "Let's get ourselves some grub."

"Where?" said Donald.

"Wherever looks good," said Sora. "Maybe someplace flashy. We've got plenty of munny, right?"

"Lollygoggling munny!" said Goofy.

"Shut up, you big palooka," said Donald.

"Everyone, please," said Jiminy. "I'm not even sure why we're doing this. Sora, are you sure you aren't just getting another one of your crushes?"

"Another one of my crushes?" said Sora. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I am shocked–SHOCKED–that you don't know what I'm talking about," said Jiminy. "First, you've got Kairi. Remember her? You know, your girlfriend? That teenybopper wannabe glamour girl who dresses like a floozy and has the personality of a wet sponge? I'm sure you know her. She's the girl who wears a skirt short enough to show off her underwear to every guy in the area, makes you do all the heavy lifting while she sits around making necklaces out of seashells, and flirts with both you and Riku as if she's never even heard of monogamy before. That's the first girl. But oh, I'm just getting started. Remember Wonderland? There was that charmer of a young lass with the yellow hair and the blue dress. Does the name 'Alice' ring a bell? I'm sure it does. The minute you saw her, you forgot all about Kairi and started making eyes. I haven't seen someone so desperate for love from someone he just met since _Seinfeld_ went off the air. That's pretty bad, Sora. Oh, and don't forget Agrabah. You never once took your eyes off of that scantily clad princess of theirs. Don't think for a minute that I didn't notice that. Hoo boy! You're quite the young dandy, you know? And now, even though you just met this Mira girl, and even though you have so many others out there, you've already taken her on a date and then turned yourself, in your own mind, into her knight in shining armor. Frankly, I'm ashamed of you, Sora.

"But it doesn't end there. You're a pushover at times, and at times you care too much (about girls), but at other times, you don't seem to care at all. I'm talking about that Riku kid, of course. He tried to murder one of your friends right in front of your face, but five minutes later, you completely forgot all about that and started treating him like a long lost friend. Seriously, Sora, you owe a little more loyalty to the victim in cases like that. Riku stabbed someone. Right there. Boom. Attempted murder. And you didn't care. You still don't care. You want to associate with known criminals. Do you know how that's going to rub off on you?

"And while we're talking about your character flaws, you sure get awfully defensive whenever anyone criticizes you. Nice going for someone who ran away from home at such a tender young age. Far be it from me to be judgmental, but you're a pretty awful little boy sometimes.

"And you know what else is wrong with you? You're reckless. When Leon attacked you in Traverse Town, you tried to fight back. You, a scrawny little kid fresh off the farm, and him, an ill-tempered warrior with a giant sword that doubles as a gun. How stupid was that? I'll tell you how stupid it was: quite! And now, you're off on another suicide mission.

"Speaking of which, remember stabbing yourself in Hollow Bastion? You stabbed yourself! That makes your idiotic duel with Leon look like the work of a genius. Cokehead musicians stab themselves. Good little boys don't.

"How are we ever going to save the universe if you keep behaving like this? It's just not going to happen. You need to develop some responsibility. Think with your head, not with your hormones. Don't throw your life away for a girl who's going to die anyway when the Heartless take over this world. Get it?"

By this point, Sora could do nothing but cower on the sidewalk in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, sobbing, and moaning about how he should have listened to what his mother taught him when he was little.

But Goofy had something else on his mind. "Jiminy, every world we visit, we find ourselves splash in the middle of some conflict or some problem. Every time, we solve the problem, and as soon as we do that, we find the keyhole."

"Yean," said Donald. "It's as if we're following some kind of formula."

Jiminy's eyes bugged out. "You're ruining my rhythm, you guys."

"Well, soooo-rry," said Donald. "We've got more important things to do than talk about Sora's girl problems. Like get some food."

Jiminy huffed. "You're just saying that because you and Goofy have the same troubles with monogamy. Remember Acapulco?"

"Gawrsh, Donald," Goofy chuckled, "you sure did chase a lot of half-naked ladies around that beach. You and those two birds."

"Aw, shut up," Donald pouted. "This, coming from the guy who can't choose between his old wife, that ugly cow, and that librarian lady. Which is it, Goofy?"

"Everybody, please," said Jiminy. "Let's just get dinner."

XXX

Back in her cell, Mira could do nothing. She could not stand. She could not sit up. She could not even stir. Even crying took too much effort.

The Ice Princess's torture had sapped her of all her resolve. All her energy. The only thing remaining was a sense of numbness to everything, including the discomforts of the dungeon.

With the wailing, mind-swallowing voice of the Ice Princess still swirling through her mind, Mira let her head slip to the cold floor as her eyes shut involuntarily.


	10. Side Quest

1Chapter 10 – Side Quest!

During the late afternoon, _The Happy Octopus_ bustled like a gaggle of slobbering lawyers circling a twelve-car pileup comprising at least six ambulances, with a clientele that looked like the reject group after a _Cirque du Soleil_ audition marathon and a menu rich in snails that only a sophisticated urbanite or a neolithic hunter-gatherer–and no one else–could call a satisfying meal. That's what rich people eat, you know. The garbage parts of the food.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy managed to blend in fairly well with the rest of the riffraff. That relieved Jiminy, who worried a bit that their waiter would question why a gigantic dog and an ill-tempered duck were ordering the calamari, to say nothing of how the house exterminator would react to a large cricket who also happened to be a paying customer. In fact, if you took down a list of the parties currently dining and ordered them according to how outlandish they appeared to a more normal observer, Sora's party would fall somewhere in the middle. You would get the same result if you ordered them according to how creepy or intimidating each party was.

At the top of the creepy list would be a young boy sitting by himself in a corner booth, picking at his bowl of soup _du jour_ with a knife. His high creep factor came both from his apparent obliviousness to the plain fact that you can't eat soup with a knife and the fact that he was a dead ringer for Riku, only with blond hair. That, and his knife was more the "dagger" variety than the "dinner knife" variety. He wore a perpetual scowl that made him look like he would stab the _maitre'd_ if he got his order wrong.

"Is that Riku?" Sora asked his buddies.

"Couldn't be," said Donald.

"He looks just like him, though," said Sora, staring rather impolitely in the stranger's direction.

"I don't think he looks murderous enough," said Goofy. "Besides, Riku has white hair. That kid has blond hair. There's a world of difference."

"Hey," said Sora, "I happen to be a world-renowned expert on hair care products. Have you seen my coiffure lately? You know how much gunk I have to put into it to get it to look this good and stay this good? Remember how it didn't budge from its lofty shape even when we went through that obnoxious underwater level?"

"Gawrsh, Sora," said Goofy, "I don't remember that level too well at all. I spent the whole time concentrating on holding my breath."

"Well, it did," said Sora. "I had perfect hair even underwater, and you don't get that from being the kind of guy who doesn't know the difference between conditioner and moisturizing formula. No, guys, I am this game's... uh, I mean, this adventure's Boss of Hair Care. If I were in a Mega Man game, when you killed me you'd get equipped with Hair Razor. If I were in a one-on-one hair battle with Cloud Strife himself, I'd win on sheer intimidation factor. I am, in sort, The Man."

"Full of yourself, too," Donald mumbled.

"What was that?" said Sora. "Never mind. My point is that I, Sora the Boss of Hair, can tell that that boy in the corner could very well be Riku hiding under the cover of Seashell Blond #4 hair dye. I know it!"

"Man," said Donald, "I thought Jiminy was a pain when he got on a roll."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Sora.

"It means the boy just walked off while we were busy talking!" By this point, Donald could not help but hop up and down and squawk his reply, drawing a few stares from the other patrons.

Goofy leaned in to the middle of the table. "Sora, are you getting jealous because he looks like Riku, and your new girlfriend looks like Kairi, and you know how Riku likes to hit on Kairi, and..."

Thwack! Sora bopped Goofy over the head with the Keyblade. "I've had about enough of you and this whole stupid world!" He glared at his friend.

"Now, Sora," said Goofy, "we all know you get a little touchy around anyone even resembling a girl..."

"And that includes Riku," Donald added.

"But that doesn't give you permission to hit your friend," continued Goofy. "And for that, I must punish you. Tornado!"

Goofy leaped up from his seat, twirled around like a whirlwind, and whipped by Sora's chair, pulling Sora himself into his vortex. The attack didn't last long, but it was more than enough to leave the two of them dizzy. When they both regained the ability to stand upright unassisted, they sat back down at their plates.

Sora's plate held a surprise for him: he could see his reflection in one of the cleared-out corners. "My hair! Goofy, what did you do to my hair!"

"You look goofy," said Goofy. "A-hyuck."

"That's not funny," said Sora.

Donald, on the verge of a laughing fit, disagreed. "How is that not funny? That's the funniest thing I've seen since we got to this lousy stinking world."

"Anybody got a comb?" said Sora. "A comb, some Wonderlocks Magic Hair Get, and maybe a chisel. I need them, now!"

"Calm down," said Goofy.

"Yeah," said Donald. "This place has put us all on edge.

"I think it's because Mira is in trouble," said Sora.

"Every girl you meet gets into mortal danger within a few minutes of you two being introduced," said Donald. "Ever notice that?"

Sora shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Now that you mention it..."

"Like Alice," said Donald, and Sora's face perked up. "You met her, you flirted a little, and she nearly got beheaded. And Jane. She got kidnapped by that guy with the goofy mustache. Jasmine, she found herself spirited away by that sorcerer. Remember, tall, dark, and ugly? The mighty morbid power monger? Bad news for her, huh? And then there was Wendy. Kidnapped by pirates may be cool to a very young Fred Savage, but it's not so great if you're actually being snatched away from your family. Who else?"

Jiminy picked up where Donald left off. "Belle, she had those problems with Maleficent, the big bully. Ariel nearly found herself the centerpiece of a fish fry just after you met her."

"Exactly," said Donald. "You're just bad news for girls, Sora. Sorry to say."

"Oh, you should talk," said Sora. "I saw _The Three Caballeros_. Women run from you like you're a rabid tiger on meth."

"How do you even know what that is?" said Donald. "Seriously."

"You learn a lot when your best friend growing up is Riku," said Sora.

"I told you he was a bad apple," said Jiminy. "Just goes to show."

"Goes to show what?" said Sora.

"Goes to show why you turned out the way you did."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Sora.

"It means this," a new voice cut in. "Would you three gentlemen like to come aside with me for a minute?"

The _maitre'd_ motioned for Donald, Goofy, and Sora to come with him. Jiminy, indignant at not being noticed despite the fact that the same _maitre'd_ had recently served him his dinner, followed along, cursing softly to himself. They eventually ended up in a room adjoining the kitchen.

The _maitre'd_ continued. "I noticed you three were causing a bit of, how you say, a ruckus?"

"That's us," said Donald proudly.

"You're scaring off customers. Everyone here looks a little, how to say? Wacky. Very wacky. But you and your tornadoes and your arguing and your man dressed as duck belching the alphabet, that is too much. I cannot take more, so I must throw you out."

"Gawrsh," said Goofy, "I hate it when that happens."

"That is unless you complete this task I am about to set before you. Behold, my table. What do you see here?"

He pointed to a serving table covered in a plain white tablecloth. Nothing sat on it.

"Nothing," said Donald.

"Nada," said Jiminy.

"Zilch," said Goofy.

"Slightly less than Kairi eats per meal," said Sora.

"Exactly," said the _maitre'd_. "What you do not see is my masterpiece, a giant root beer cake. Root beer flavor, cake texture, jalapeno icing. Perfection. I was going to submit it to the annual Jim Morrison Memorial Strange Days Wacky Cake Flavor Competition (formerly a musical competition, but we all know why that is not the case now), but a boy about your age stole it from me. From me! He stole it! He stole my cake! Right out from under my nose, he stole it! It was the cake he stole, and the thing he stole was the cake! He did not steal the table, and the tablecloth is right out. Just the cake."

"Just the cake?" said Sora, apparently slow on the uptake.

"The cake, and the plate it was on."

"Then why did you go to such great lengths to establish that it was just the cake?"

"Just because!"

Sora thought he could see a tiny cloud of steam rising from the top of the _maitre'd_'s head, but he decided not to point it out to him.

"Anyway," the _maitre'd_ said, "I want you to catch the thief and give him a good whacking, okay? I saw from your earlier classless display that you are the violent types, so I expect you will be able to do what I ask. Do it, and you shall be rewarded."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" said Sora.

Goofy chuckled. "I think so, Sora, but me and Pippy Longstocking? What would the kids look like?"

"I think so, Sora," said Donald, "but where are we going to find any lederhosen around here?"

"I think so, Sora," said Jiminy, "but isn't Kathy Lee Gifford already married?"

"No, you doofus! Doofuses. Doofusi. Doofi. How do you make the plural of that? Never mind." said Sora. "I'm thinking... side quest!"


	11. Morally Bankrupt

1Chapter 11 – Morally Bankrupt

"His name is Richard," the _maitre'd_ explained. "He was here just a minute ago. I saw him dash out the front door with my gourmet cake, and I would like to get it back."

"Gawrsh," said Goofy. "Maybe you should have followed him."

"I must tend to my restaurant! Have you any idea how much work that is, you silly vandals?"

"Vandals?" said Sora. "I thought we were just making a scene. I mean, I haven't been involved in any vandalism in at _least_ a week. Maybe longer."

"You know what it is that I mean," said the _maitre'd_. "I want you to chase that boy and retrieve my cake for me. If you do, I might forgive you for your indiscretions."

Goofy chuckled. "I didn't know it was a crime to be lost."

"_Indiscretions_, not _misdirections_!" Donald slapped his forehead. "Did you even go to school, you stupid goof?"

"Me?" said Goofy. "I went to Knight School."

The _maitre'd_ folded his arms and glared. "If you are finished with your petty argument, I would have you begin pursuit of this thief right away. I would hate for you not to catch him in time."

"You said it," said Sora. "Guys, let's go catch ourselves a cake thief!"

"I am glad that you decided to listen to reason. Now, kids, he went that-a-way!"

XXX

Sora stopped to catch his breath as he rounded the corner into an alley. He was certain he saw someone dashing that way, arms around some sort of oversized baked goods. Vaguely cake-shaped, too. Silver hair, ugly clothes...

"That's the Riku guy!" Sora realized. "We're after Riku!"

"Really?" said Donald. "I didn't even know Riku was on this world."

"It's the guy in the restaurant who looked like him," said Sora. "Maybe it was him. I don't know. We'll just have to catch him and see. One thing bugs me, though. 'Riku' and 'Richard' are different names. We were told the thief is Richard. If we were after Riku, then why would he have a completely different name?"

"'Riku' and 'Richard' sound pretty similar to me," said Donald. "Very close. Maybe he's using a false name."

"Maybe," said Sora. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"I'm the brains of this operation," said Donald. "Everybody knows that."

"Yeah," said Goofy. "Donald is the brains, Jiminy is the moralizer, you're the player surrogate, and I'm the comic relief. It all fits."

"Player surrogate?" said Sora. "What's that supposed to mean? Who's a player?"

"You are," said Donald. "With all your girlfriends."

"And what does that make Kairi?" Sora frowned.

Goofy elbowed Donald in the ribs. "She's the fanservice."

"Eww!" said Sora. "You make it sound like she's some sort of... icon. I thought I was the only guy allowed to stare at her."

"You're awfully naive!" said Goofy. "Her only reason for being is..."

"Guys," said Jiminy, "I don't think we're supposed to be talking about this sort of thing. We're supposed to be getting that cake back, remember?"

"Oh, right," said Sora. "Onward, boys! Over that fence."

As the team approached the old chain-link fence that blocks off most dark alleys used in chase scenes, Sora thought he saw their quarry dart around the corner ahead of them, so he pointed and shouted. It didn't take long for all three (with Jiminy in Donald's pocket) to scale the fence and make a run for Richard's location.

Except they forgot to climb down. Instead, they returned to the ground the hard way.

Goofy let out a cry: "Waaa-hoo-hoo-hoo-eeee!"

"Ouch!" said Sora. "Geez, does it normally hurt that much to float down from a ledge?"

"I don't think we did any floating there, Sora," said Goofy, rubbing what he was sure would become a bruise.

"We normally don't fall that hard," said Sora. "Heck, we normally don't even fall that soon. Don't we normally hang in the air a few seconds until someone realizes that we're not being supported by anything?"

"Yeah," said Donald. "Stupid planet. Stupid world. Stupid... gravity."

Goofy scrunched up his face, deep in thought. "I thought you liked your mashed taters, Donald."

"Gravity, not gravy, you dolt!" Donald, his patience at an end, socked Goofy in the nose.

"Sorry," said Goofy. "We at Knight School didn't get any of those fancy mp3s they give you wizards."

"Ph.D.!" Donald flailed his arms about while hopping on one foot and squawking. "I have a Ph.D. Not an mp3."

"You don't have any mp3s?" said Goofy. "Well, then, can I have your iPod?"

"Nooooo!"

"iShouldn't have asked."

"iThink you just don't want to get hit again."

"You keep hitting people like that and you're going to put out an iBall."

"Aw, your face is an iSore already."

"You don't mean that, Donald. iThought you were my buddy. My role model. A wizard iCon."

"iWill bSick if you guys don't cut that out," said Sora.

"Hey," said Donald, "this isn't the iDeal situation, but we've still almost caught the guy. If only this iDiot weren't holding us back."

"iDisagree," said Sora. "Goofy has always been there to lead the charge. iHide behind his shield all the time."

"He's getting away," said Jiminy. "Please, guys, let's cut the fighting and pick up the chase. See him? He's right across the street, under that iKea Furniture billboard."

Donald smacked Goofy one more time, just for good measure, and then everyone raced after Richard.

XXX

Richard managed to stay one step ahead of Sora, but he seemed to want to keep close enough to drown Sora's enthusiasm in taunts.

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries, you silly boy!" he said. "You stupid English k-nigh-ts. Go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!"

"That really does sound you like, Riku," said Sora. "Stop, and give us back the cake! You don't want to get in trouble, do you?"

"I do not know who this Riku person is," said Richard, "but I bet he is just as dense as you lousy lot. You smelly tramps. You scummy rotten chicken eggs."

"You know," said Sora, "we don't have all day. Just give us back the cake, and we won't hurt you."

"Just how do you intend to hurt me, you unarmed little hooligan?" Richard went down another alley and began ascending a fire escape.

"With my Keyblade!" Sora brandished his weapon.

"You want to hurt me with a key?" Richard looked shocked. "A key? The boy wants to fight with a key? What's next, strangling me with your watch? Tying me up with your goofy necklace? Whipping me with an early-90s chic slap bracelet? Um, cutting me with your credit card?"

Whap! Goofy mashed his shield over Richard's head, causing him to slink against the railing. "You should have paid more attention to where you were going, instead of taunting like that. Gawrsh, this fire escape turns into a dead end up here, doesn't it?"

Richard groaned. "I've been done in by a dog. Hounded by a hound. Caught by a Chihuahua. Foiled by a Finnish Spitz. Quartered by a..."

"We get the picture," said Sora. "Now give us back the cake."

"Cake?" said Richard, as innocently as he could. "I don't have any cake."

"Liar!" Donald bopped him on the head with his staff. "We saw you."

"You must have eaten it all," said Sora. "'Fess up, now."

"Okay, fine," said Richard. "I ate it all. I'm such a little pig. Just like your girlfriend."

"How does he know Kairi?" said Goofy.

"Lucky guess," Donald shrugged. "But I'll bet he gets a tummy ache from snarfing all that cake just before being chased across town. And up all these stairs. Yuck."

"Come to think of it," said Richard, "I do feel a little ill."

"Let's leave him," said Sora. "He's punishing himself, and we have better things to do."

"This mission is accompanied," said Goofy.

"Accomplished!" Donald kicked Goofy in the shins.


	12. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Chapter 12 – Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Dakota Castle. Sora, Donald, and Goofy would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Jiminy suggested they be cautious in their approach to the enemy stronghold, but Sora had other ideas. The image of dear, sweet Mira etched in his mind like a particularly bothersome splinter that makes your hands sore while you're trying to do your pushups at the gym, he charged ahead, obvious to the dangers that awaited him.

Oblivious, too, even to the name of the castle. His ignorance and curiosity finally got the best of him just as he was about to cross the moat out front. "Where is this place anyway?" he asked no one in particular, hoping one of his friends would answer before one of the many thousands of eyes staring at him out of the darkness alongside the path.

"It's called Dakota Castle, I think," said Goofy. "That's what the doormat says."

"Doormat?"

True enough, there in front of the drawbridge was a rectangular piece of plastic grasslike material with the words, "Welcome to Dakota Caste – Please wipe your feet before entering" printed around the edges.

"Gawrsh," said Goofy. "It sure is nice of the Heartless to keep their palace clean."

"Clean?" said Sora. "Look at this place. It's practically a bog! Wiping your feet must be just for show."

"Or else…" said Donald.

"Or else what?" Sora said.

"Or else there's poison on the grass out here, and the Heartless don't want anyone to track it inside!"

As soon as Donald's word sank in, everyone charged headlong for the entrance. There, they collided with a metal gate probably meant to keep out intruders. Sora found himself at the bottom of a dogpile of battered heroes.

"How will we get in?" Goofy wondered.

"Get off me and we'll think about it!" said Donald. "You guys just have no manners sometimes, squashing such an innocent guy as me."

"I think we use that." Goofy pointed to a small, bright red spot on the wood of the bridge, shaped roughly like the head of a mouse.

"A Trinity Mark!" Sora beamed. "Just what we needed."

"Ah, phooey," said Donald. "I always get squashed when we do this."

"We don't really have a choice," said Goofy. "Not if we want to stop the Heartless and save Sora's girlfriend."

"I told you on the way over," said Donald. "He already has a girlfriend. This new one is just a concubine."

"So how many does that make?" Goofy began counting love interests on his fingers, but Sora interrupted him.

"Will you two please be quiet and charge?"

Three bumped heads and some mysterious pyrotechnics later, the front door to Dakota Caste swung open, revealing a dimly lit main hall that almost certainly led to danger, intrigue, and one poor little girl. Overhead, a chandelier dangled from the thinnest of wires, threatening to crash down upon the three heroes at any minute. Grotesque carvings along all of the walls looked almost as if they would come to life to eat the intruders. Paintings more horrifying than Salvador Dali could paint after a bad drug trip lined the walls higher up, their demonic subjects watching the middle of the room. Sora could swear he saw a crash of lighting in one of the windows, even though it wasn't raining outside.

"Anybody home?" Goofy shouted into the (possibly) empty chamber. Only his echo answered him.

"I think they're all out to lunch," said Donald. "Maybe we should try back another time."

"Don't be silly," said Sora. "Mira is in here somewhere. We just saw a whole swarm of Heartless head into the forest here. Of course they were going to this castle."

"We better start exploring, then," said Goofy. "No sense waiting near the entrance."

The entrance, which shut behind them as they stepped out into the room.

"Automatic doors," said Donald. "How convenient!"

"I think that was supposed to scare us," said Goofy, "but don't these Heartless know that we can always exit a dungeon we've entered in case we need to rest up?"

"Please don't talk about things like that," said Jiminy. "It's really bad form."

"If you put it that way," said Goofy, "I think we should just keep going. Never mind that…"

A swarm of materializing Heartless cut Goofy off. Sora counted at least a dozen Shadows and two Fat Bandits. With no time to prepare a strategy, he whipped out his Keyblade and charged.

"Enemies!" said Donald. "Time to try out my new battle cry. For Daaaaaaaaaisy!"

"I need a battle cry, too," said Goofy. "Spoooooon!"

It only took a minute to turn all of the Heartless into puffs of smoke, but that didn't signal the end of the commotion.

"Very good," said a voice from somewhere up above Sora. "Very good, indeed. I didn't know you had such potential."

Sora recognized the voice. "Kairi? Is that you?"

"Who?" said the voice. "I know no Kairi."

"Don't play tricks on me now," said Sora. "I know your voice. It's the dearest thing to me."

"How quaint," the voice said. "You hold dear that which holds your friend Mira in the most miserable of painful vicegrips. I scoff at your puny attempt at bravado. Still, I can't help but be a little flattered. Most people hate my voice."

"Show yourself, whoever you are!" said Sora.

"In time, boy." The voice chuckled. "In time, you will know the true power of the Ice Princess."

"Ice Princess?" said Donald. "Man, these villain names just keep getting cornier and cornier."

"Do not underestimate me!" said the voice. "I am like nothing you have faced thus far."

"Yeah, yeah," said Sora. "If I had a penny for every time I heard that one."

"Insolent fools. I shall destroy you."

Goofy scratched his head. "Has she said anything that isn't stock dialogue so far? For all we know, that voice could just be a recording. You know, one of those automedicated alarm systems."

"Automatic," said Donald. "But you have a point."

"I'll tell you whose dialogue is stock!" The voice seemed angry, or at least its owner did. "Mr. 'We'll always be together, Kairi.' I've read more romantic lines in novels I bought at the grocery store!"

"I thought you didn't know Kairi," said Goofy.

"I—I did say that, didn't I? Never mind. I don't really know what I know. I'm not that big on self-knowledge."

"_Nostral te ipsum_," said Goofy. "That's what I always say."

Sora and Donald sighed in unison.

"Is he always like this?" asked the voice.

"I'm afraid so," said Donald.

"Then I'll kill him first. Come, see me in the dungeon if you want wish for death."

Sora shook his head. "These bad guys. They spend all this time devising evil schemes and building elaborate hideouts with all the little intricate decorative details, and then they don't even take a minute to think up some original speeches. Tsk, tsk."

"I don't think that was the main bad guy this time, Sora," said Donald. "Call it a hunch."

"We'll see," said Sora. "We'll see when we reach the dungeon."

"And where would that be?" said Goofy.

Nobody knew, so they scanned the perimeter of the room for clues. Surely one of the many doors leading elsewhere would show some signs of being the entrance to the dungeon. It was a simple task to check behind each one to see if any showed any signs of leading to the prison area, but before the party even got to the first door, Donald stumbled over a better solution.

"A map, guys," he said. "I'll bet this will tell us everything."

Sure enough, on the wall next to the entrance was a map of Dakota Castle, complete with markers for landmarks, a legend, and an arrow with 'You are here' printed next to it. Landmarks in the legend included the throne room, the torture chamber, the execution altar, and the dungeon.

"This way!" Donald said as he herded the others in the direction indicated by the map.

"Hold on," said Goofy. "Shouldn't we let Jiminy copy this down in his journal in case we get lost later on?"

"Good idea," said Sora. "Then we can access the map at any time while we're in the dungeon. Wow. That sounds like something I've heard somewhere before, but I just can't place it."

XXX

The castle dungeon was about as inviting as a William James novel on a rainy afternoon the day after a stock market crash. It wasn't the sort of place anyone would want to stay for any length of time, and from the battered and crushed skeletons hanging from the walls and the trails of dried blood across the floor, Sora figured most prisoners had things to worry about other than being alive and in prison. He could only hope Mira hadn't joined the poor unfortunate souls on the wall.

And she hadn't. Not yet. She didn't appear to have much life left in her as she slumped across the floor of her cell, but she was still breathing. Still breathing, and still able to be rescued, thanks to the Keyblade. Sora unlocked her cell door, darted to her side, and propped her head up in his arms.

"Mira! It's me, Sora," he said to her, but she could find little to say in return. Something done to her in the recent past had left her incapable of answering. She didn't appear to have any bruises or cuts or other external signs of torture, but something was wrong.

"Mira!" Sora tried again. "Do you hear me? I'm here to rescue you."

Again, she did not reply. Sora felt a tear run down his cheek as he stared into her eyes. They were open and just as gorgeous as he always pictured them, but they lacked the spark they had back at the park. They were the eyes of someone who didn't want to go on with life.

"Maybe this'll cheer her up," said Donald. He produced a book from his pack and held it in front of Mira's face.

"Hey, what's that?" said Sora. "Where did you…?"

"I picked it up in a souvenir shop on the way here," said Donald. "It was going to be a present for Kairi, but I think it'll be useful enough for us in this situation."

"What is it, though?"

Before Donald could answer, Mira came to life. Not slowly or gradually; she jumped up, at once, as if ignited by a spark plug. Her smile returned to her face. "Sora, is that you?"

"Yeah, it is."

"You look so cute!"

Sora blushed. "Why, thanks. You, too."

"No, I mean here, in the book."

She grabbed the volume from Donald and shoved it in Sora's face, but she couldn't resist hugging him before he could read the title.

"To think you were once so little, too," Mira said. "Still had your hair, and I had no idea you had such a smooth bottom."

"Such a… WHAT?" Sora's face contorted in confusion.

"See?" Mira pointed to the cover. The books title read, _Anthology of Embarrassing Naked Baby Photos_. The star model on the cover looked just like every other baby, except instead of Winston Churchill's hair, it had brown spikes shooting off in every direction. To erase any doubt about the authenticity of the image, Sora's name appeared in the lower corner of the photo.

"How did that get to this world?" Sora fumed. "Really, I had no idea my mother would even dare send pictures like that to a publisher. But in this world? I need to have a talk with her."

"Gawrsh, Sora," said Goofy. "We thought you were just a Keyblade Master. Now it turns out you're a model."

"A cute one, too," said Mira.

"Shut up," said Sora. "I don't want to hear it. And burn that stupid book."

Mira hugged Sora tighter. "There's nothing to be so ashamed of. We're going to be married someday anyway. Right, my knight in shining armor?"

"Whoa, who said anything about marriage?" said Sora. "We're not even adults yet."

Mira giggled. "It brought me out of my little funk there, anyway. And I needed it. The people in charge here know some of the worst methods or torture imaginable. You know what they did to me?"

"No," said Sora. "Do I want to know?"

"They tied me up and forced me to listen to Hayden Panettiere. Singing. Do you have any idea what that's like? It's like the opposite of music."

"Why, though?" said Sora.

"It's because I'm a bit of a fugitive, for musical crimes."

Donald shrugged. "Musical crimes, like disco?"

"Worse than that, I'm afraid," said Mira. "I've been hiding contraband. Musical contraband. My family keeps a collection of banned Beatles records."

"How is that bad?" said Donald. "The Beatles are terrific."

"The Beatles have been banned every since _she_ came to power. All good music has, actually. It doesn't get talked about much, but…"

"But?" said Donald.

"I don't think you're from this world. Otherwise, you'd know about _her_."

"That's a pretty good guess," said Sora.

"Sora!" Donald scolded. "You're not supposed to tell people about the worlds being connected. King's orders!"

"Sorry," said Sora. "But no secrets from Mira."

"I'll have to tell you the story, then," said Mira. "And I'm sorry you have to hear something so sad, but it's the truth of this place. For many long years, we've all been _her_ slaves."

"Who is _she_?" Sora asked.

Mira looked him straight in the eyes. "The Banshee Queen, Yoko Ono."


	13. Minibossa Nova Baby, Part I

Chapter 13 – Minibossa Nova Baby, Part I

"Yoko Ono?" said Donald. "Who's that?"

"Yoko Ono is the woman who used the Beatles to come to power and then destroyed them," said Mira. "She hates music. It's said she only married John Lennon because she couldn't stand what he and his band were doing to the world. He only wanted a little peace, and she just wanted a piece of the world. She poisoned their music, broke up the band, and eventually killed John. Then the others. She then used her dark powers to gain control over the entire world, stamping out all good music."

"Dark powers?" Sora shook his head.

"Sounds like the Heartless to me," said Goofy. "That's probably why we saw so many on the way over."

Donald slapped the back of Goofy's head. "Everyone else already figured that out, you doofus."

Mira ignored the violence and continued. "Those dark being have been running loose around the world ever since Yoko Ono came to power, but there are others. The shadow creatures are like something straight out of a nightmare, but there are other, more primal evils lurking, probably even nearby. Not everything foul is a shadow."

Sora struck a heroic pose. "We'll just have to smash those monsters, too!"

"Brave one, Sora," Mira giggled. "Cute, too. But beware. I have no doubt that you are powerful, but I do not wish to see you hurt."

"I have the Keyblade," said Sora. "Nothing can hurt me, and if it does, Donald can just heal me back up."

"Donald is a doctor?" Mira made a face betraying a whole truckload of skepticism.

"Not exactly," said Sora. "He's a magician."

"Wait, Sora!" said Donald. "My magic doesn't work in this world."

Sora hung his head. "I forgot about that part."

"Don't do anything too rash, then, Sora," said Mira. "I just want to get out of here alive."

"We all do," said Sora, "but our first task is to stop the Heartless. With them running around, no world is safe. Magic or no magic, we need to find this world's keyhole."

"Keyhole?"

"Yeah, it's a giant… keyhole. It appears whenever we do something particularly noble or gallant, and we lock it and move on to the next world. It's kinda our thing."

Mira giggled again. "You're so cute sometimes."

"I am," said Sora. "I really am."

"But enough," said Mira. "We're going to get caught if we stick around here."

"Before we go," said Goofy, "I want to know why that Satan Panama-tear person gets to sing if Moko Jono banned all music."

"She banned all good music," said Mira. "All music that makes you feel good when you hear it. The Ice Princess can quite literally kill you softly with her song."

"Wow," said Sora. "Maybe I should get some ear plugs."

"They don't work," said Mira. "Nothing does. There's something unnatural about her powers."

"She must be in league with the Heartless, too!" Donald offered. "Then we have no choice but to defeat her, as well. Sora, lead the way!"

"Which way?"

"She's probably in her torture chamber," said Mira. "I… can show you where that is. I think."

"Are you going to be okay going back there?" said Sora.

"I should be," said Mira. "And if I start to feel bad, I can just look at those cute baby pictures of yours."

"Hey, I want that book back," said Sora. "That's not funny."

"Too late." Mira winked at him. "In any case, follow me down this hallway. It's not too far."

The group set off behind Mira. Sora walked just behind her, holding her hand. Donald marched behind him, and Goofy took up the rear guard. Nothing attacked them on their way, but a series of potted plants lining the walls cast shadows that looked very much like Heartless. The resemblance was enough to keep everyone on edge; nobody spoke until they reached Hayden Panettiere's torture chamber. Mira's palm grew sweaty inside Sora's grip.

Sora pulled open the door and peered inside. Total darkness met him. Undaunted, he and his friends stepped out into the room. They stood there in silence for several seconds, breathing heavily.

Hayden Panettiere herself broke through the silence, with a wail that split Sora's ears and forced him to the ground. His brain shut off before he even had time to complain that Hayden didn't even taunt him before attacking.

The screeching lasted longer than any human could be expected to go without drawing breath. Sora reflexively threw his hands on top of his head to see if it was still in one piece, but he found the tactile evidence that it was unconvincing in light of the pain racing through it. At first, it only affected his head, but it spread quickly to the rest of his body. He writhed in agony on the floor, certain he was going to die.


	14. Minibossa Nova Baby, Part II

Chapter 14 – Minibossa Nova Baby, Part II

Sora's life drained out of him, bit by bit, screech by screech. The world around him faded out, almost in slow motion. The Ice Princess's voice—and nothing else—took its place. Nothing remained but that hideous cry. He couldn't even see Mira anymore. Nothing could break through the smothering wall of sound that filled Sora's head until his consciousness was a mere specter of its former self.

Nothing, until a warning siren went off in Sora's head.

_Bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah!_

Sora's head pounded harder with every bleat, but he found himself able to move ever so slightly.

_Bwah, bwah!_

The siren didn't stop. Sora's approach toward death, however, did. Hayden Panettiere's spell broke the instant an even more grating sound began to compete with it.

"Sora's hurt!" Donald shouted. "Quick, Goofy, get him a cure potion!"

"No," said Sora.

"Sora," Donald insisted, "you know that siren means you're almost dead. If we don't cure you, then…" Donald gulped and slashed his index finger across his throat.

"Don't do it, Donald," said Sora. "I'll be fine. Just get Mira to safety. Goofy, help me take this witch down!"

With a flick of his wrist, Sora summoned the Keyblade into his hands, and he charged. The Ice Princess ducked to her left to avoid being struck in the face Sora's weapon, but she didn't have the agility necessary to stay a step ahead of Sora. Her punishment for her sluggishness was a one-two-three combo.

Goofy met the battle from the other side, plowing into he Ice Princess with his shield. She staggered back, dazed. Sora seized the opportunity to hit her in the mouth again. This time, he heard a crack and another shriek. Then, Hayden Panettier fell silent.

"We sure shut her up, huh?" Goofy went into his basic victory dance.

"She's not dead," said Donald. "I think you just broke her teeth."

"My mom always told me not to swing heavy objects around like that," said Sora. "She knew I'd end up hurting someone. I guess she was right after all."

"Mmphrgh," was all the Ice Princess could managed for a retort.

"She won't be torturing anybody with her singing anytime soon, hyuck," said Goofy. "No siree."

"Wait," said Sora. He pointed his Keyblade at their defeated foe. "I get the feeling this isn't over yet."

"You mean it's another one of them two part fights?" Goofy assumed a combat stance again.

"I think so," said Sora.

Creeping, twisting, almost liquid shadows engulfed Hayden Panettiere. In silence, she raised her arms above her head, and the shadows swirling around her rose into a black, smoky column. That column grew in height, radius, and opaqueness until it filled most of the middle of the room. It rotated faster and faster and grew darker and darker, and then two purple tendrils crept out from the perimeter. These split at the ends and turned into what looked like shadowy hands. The main body of the column thinned out and vanished. In its place stood a monster, two stories tall, like something out of a nightmare.

"Moloch!" said Sora.

"You know him?" said Donald. "You know, I'd rather you didn't introduce us."

"I saw him in a dream," said Sora. "I saw him kill Mira."

"Sora!" said Mira. "Watch out. I've seen him before, too. Same place. He's been haunting my sleep here, and I think he's bad news."

"You think he's bad news?" Donald stomped his feet and squawked up a storm. "What else could he look like? Do you think he's here to bring flowers and candy to all the little children? He's a Heartless!"

"I am not a Heartless," Moloch said. "I am, indeed, a nightmare. An ancient god from this world, my worship long since abandoned by all but a few humans. Those familiar with this world's history may know me just as a god, but I have been many things. In recent decades, the rock music industry has been a perfect cover for me, with plenty of eager, young, delicious souls flocking to me, only to be devoured. I've found good work as a music producer, a singer, and as the personal assistant to the queen of this world. And now, I shall make you my new esteemed sacrifi—ouch!"

Sora struck the creature's foot with his Keyblade.

"S-stop that!" Moloch whimpered. "You're not supposed to attack me while I'm talking. It's a rule of chivalry."

"Is eating young girls also a rule of chivalry?" Sora asked as he continued his assault. "You're a remorseless fiend."

"I'm just trying to get by," said Moloch. "But now I see I'm going to have to take you runts seriously."

"Uh huh," Sora said. He punctuated his reply with a combo finisher. The force of the Keyblade on Moloch's foot knocked the creature off balance.  
"Tiiiiiimber!" said Donald.

Moloch landed on his back, and Sora, Donald, and Goofy immediately went to work on his head. Mira stood back and admired the efficiency with which the trio could dispatch a creature so terrifying. She didn't have long to think, though. The fight ended in under a minute, and Moloch faded from the world, forever.

"No sweat," said Sora. "On to find this Yoko Ono character."

"That was amazing," Mira said, and she held her arms open, inviting a hug.

Donald obliged. "It was nothing."

Mira could only blush and stare at Sora.


	15. Yes, Yoko Ono

Chapter 15 – Yes, Yoko Ono

"I don't wanna face it," said Donald. "Yoko. I want her to just pass me by."

"Are you sure about this, Sora?" said Mira. "Baby, please don't go. You could be killed. Beating Yoko is a long, long, long way from taking down her henchmen."

"I'll get by with a little help from my friends," said Sora. "Won't you believe in me?"

Mira sighed. "If you want me to, I will."

Donald shivered. "Those henchmen were tough enough. I don't wanna be a soldier, Sora. I don't wanna die."

"Crybaby. Cry," said Sora. "Is that how you're going to intimidate her? Flying away at the first sign of danger?"

"This bird has flown," said Donald.

"Surprise, surprise," said Sora. "If you run for your life now, you're going to have to carry that weight. A long time."

"Give peace a chance, Sora."

"Peace? This world won't be at peace until we stop Yoko Ono. There's no way. There might not be a tomorrow."

"No tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow never knows. Nothing's a guarantee when the Heartless run your world."

"I know," said Donald. "I'm just scared. I wanna hold your hand."

"Hold Mira's hand!" said Sora.

"I'll help him out, for your sake, Sora," Mira said.

"Good."

"Donald, I'm here for you. I know we're all scared to be alone. Everybody got to have a home."

"Aww," said Donald as Mira clung to him. "Please don't tell Daisy about this, though."

"Your secret's safe with me," said Mira. "Let's just get through this and stop that villain. She's got the Devil in her heart, I swear."

Goofy laughed. "Sora, you're gonna lose that girl if you keep letting her snuggle up to Donald like that."

Sora blinked. "You won't see me losing sleep over that possibility. Besides, Donald's already got a girl."

"I should have known better than to tease you at a time like this," said Goofy. "Just say the word, and we'll be off."

"The word is—let's go get Yoko!"

"How do we find her, though?" Donald wondered.

Sora stopped to scratch his head. "Good question. Any ideas, Jiminy?"

"You gotta think for yourself on this one, Sora," Jiminy answered. "I just don't know."

Goofy raised his hand above his head, shaking it frantically. "I've got a feeling I know how to find her."

"What is it, Goofy?" Sora said.

Goofy pulled out Jiminy's map of the castle and pointed to the legend. "Tell me what you see here."

"Oh Yoko!" Sora and Donald shouted at once. "She's put her secret lair on the map."

"Right behind this room labeled 'trap' and this room labeled 'instant death,'" Goofy said. "I think we're in good shape. Shall we head off?"

"So many rooms with traps, though," said Sora. He gazed at the labels of all the surrounding rooms. "Traps here, there, and everywhere. We'd best be cautious."

XXX

The first trap room looked innocent enough until the entrance and exit doors slammed shut, leaving the party standing on a checkered floor, eight by eight squares. Eager to meet whatever challenge lay ahead for him, Sora walked into the middle of the floor. Everyone else joined him at about the moment when the ceiling began to rumble. Thirty-two suits of polished armor, in six designs, descended from above, apparently on wires, and landed on the squares next to the entrance and exit.

"Chess pieces?" Sora wondered.

Donald sneered. "I think this is where we have to beat the magical guardian of the castle in a game of chess in order to continue. Pretty cliched for a trap, I say."

"But Donald," Goofy said, "how will you tell which side is yours? The pieces are all the same color."

"What?" Donald looked around. Sure enough, on each side of the board stood sixteen white chess pieces. "That's not fair! How am I supposed to win this?"

"Maybe the point is that we can't win?"

Donald bashed Goofy over the head with his staff. "You're not helping!"

"Calm down, you two," said Sora. "I think I can handle this. I have a plan."

Donald waved his hands in front of his face and backed off. "If you're talking about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out?"

"You can count me in!" Goofy said.

"Great." Sora drew his Keyblade and hacked at the row of pawns blocking the exit. They crumbled under his assault.

"See? No problem." Sora assumed his patented cocky smile and folded his hands behind his head. "We'll be out of here in no time."

"Uh, Sora," said Donald, "don't look now, but I think you made them mad."

One of the chess pieces—the enemy king—actually spoke: "You broke the rules. You laid them waste for all to see. Now, you must die—aaaaaaaaugh!"

The king shattered under Sora's Keyblade before it could finish its speech.

"Come on, come on! It's such a joy to smash you fiends," Sora taunted. "I won't take it easy on you."

"Me neither," said Goofy.

Magical mystery chess pieces or not, they were still made of wood, and thus they were still not terribly smart. The remainder charged Sora and Goofy all at once, and all met the same fate as the king.

"That's what I call _zugzwang_," Donald said. "Hey, the door's opening!"

The party moved on into the next room.

XXX

The next room housed a giant talking wall, a bowl of nails, and a hammer. The wall stretched completely across the middle of the room, blocking passage to the exit on the other side.

"No one has ever gotten past this point," the wall informed Sora's party. "Funny, really. All you have to do is hammer a nail into me, and I'll let you through, but I don't think you can manage that."

"Donald's pretty good with a hammer," said Sora. "I'm pretty sure he's up to the task."

"Not so fast, boy," said the wall. "I'll have to charge you five trillion dollars to put in the nail."

"Five trillion?"

"Money, that's what I want," said the wall. "It's all too much for you, isn't it? I won't be surprised in the least if you never give me your money."

Sora thought for a minute. "How about this? I'll pay you five trillion imaginary dollars in exchange for pounding in one imaginary nail."

"Hey," said the door, "that's a pretty creative answer. I haven't heard one that good since the 1960s. Go ahead and pass."

"Great," said Sora.

XXX

The third and final trap room contained only a small table with an apple sitting on it. A placard below the apple had the word 'apple' printed on it. The exit at the back of the room stood wide open.

"I'm pretty sure this one is just a joke," said Sora.

"How are we supposed to take these traps seriously?" Goofy asked. No one bothered to answer him.

XXX

The final room, the throne room of Dakota Castle, was everything one could expect from the lair of an evil overlord. Fake lightning illuminated the windows at fairly regular intervals, chandeliers creaked on old chains high above everyone's head, hideous drapes matched horribly with the rest of the décor, and the Queen of the Banshees herself, Yoko Ono, sat on a gilded throne in the center of the room. Upon seeing her guests arrive, she cackled.

"So you're the ones who have been running about helter skelter in my home," said said. "It's been a long and winding road to my domain, but this is the end. The pain you take here is equal to the pain you have made elsewhere, and then some. Prepare yourselves, or run while you still can."

"We're going nowhere, man," said Mira. "I don't really want to stop your monologue, but I thought you might like to know that Sora is the Keyblade Master, and in a minute here, he's going to be making you feel like you've never been born."

"Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl," said Yoko Ono, "but she's got too much to say. How did a princess like you get to this world, anyway?"

"Princess?" Mira looked aghast. "Me?"

"You're Kairi, one of the Princesses of Heart, aren't you?"

"Not at all. My name is Mira."

"Really?" Yoko Ono stroked her chin. "You look just like her, too. I was so certain. Not that it matters. It's time for you to imagine there's a heaven!"

A black mist filtered up from the ground where Yoko Ono stood. It enveloped her and, seemingly, gave her some sort of supernatural strength. Whether it was a Heartless or not, Sora could not tell, and he had little time to appreciate the spectacle before a bolt of fire shot from Yoko Ono's fingertips and singed the ground at his feet. Fortunately, he was able to jump away in time to avoid being burned, but as soon as he landed, he had to dodge two more.

"Goofy, protect Mira!" Sora shouted without taking his eyes off of the enemy. "Use your shield. She's your top priority now."

"Can do, Sora," said Goofy.

"Donald, watch Yoko Ono and look for a weakness in her attack pattern!"

"Roger, Sora!"

No weaknesses presented themselves. Sora and Donald both had to dedicate all of their concentration to dodging Yoko Ono's attacks. Seeing no openings to close in with the Keyblade, Sora tried taunting.

"You want us to do to you what we did to your servants?" he shouted in between dodge rolls. "I heard just about every horrible sound that there is during that fight, and your bird sure could sing. Didn't help her, though."

"I don't care about them. You've got to serve yourself, you know. Ain't nobody gonna do it for you."

"Whatever gets you through the night, Yoko," Sora growled. "That's probably why nobody loves you. Not when you're down and out. Not even when you're six feet in the ground, like you're gonna be after this fight."

"You won't see me losing to the likes of you, brat," Yoko said. "I'm looking right through you, and all I see is s scared little boy, hiding behind his Keyblade. You miss your mommy, don't you, little boy?"

"Enough!" Sora swung the Keyblade at the nearest fiery projectile and sent it streaming back toward its source. Yoko Ono could not dodge it fast enough, and it exploded in front of her face. She screamed.

Yoko Ono's scream was even more primal and even more piercing than Hayden Panettiere's. Everyone else in the room covered their ears immediately, lest the sound inflict permanent damage on them. Sora even closed his eyes in a vain attempt to block Yoko's death knell more effectively.

The problem was that Yoko Ono was not dead. Sora discovered that fact when a fire bolt hit his feet and knocked him on his back, half a dozen yards away.

"Living isn't easy with eyes closed, is it?" said Yoko Ono. "Really, you give me no credit at all."

Sora grunted and clamored to his feet. He gripped the Keyblade defiantly. "If I needed someone to insult me, I could just talk to Donald and Goofy," he said. "We'll see how you run from this next wave. Like a pig from a gun, I'll bet."

Before Yoko Ono could reply, Donald's staff came down across the back of her head. The impact made a loud crunching noise.

Somehow, though, Yoko Ono shrugged the blow off, picked Donald up the scruff of his neck, and tossed him on the floor next to Sora. "Man, you been a naughty duck, letting your face grown long like that."

As soon as Donald gathered himself, his temper went off, and he began hopping up and down on one foot while swinging his arms wildly and squawking incoherently. Yoko chuckled at the display.

"Fools," she said. "You'll never understand the pools of sorrow and waves of joy that drift through an evil mind. You'll never understand the darkness. You'll only fear it to the bitter end."

"That's where you're wrong, Yoko Ono," said Sora. "We're here to stop the darkness, not to fear it. It's been a long, cold, lonely winter for the folks of this world, but it's about to get better. Behold!"

What happened next seemed to be the volition of the Keyblade itself, not Sora. He had no way of knowing what was about to happen, but the Keyblade pointed itself to the ceiling of Yoko Ono's throne room. A beam of light then shot from the tip of the blade up to the ceiling, tracing out a pattern. First, it outlined a tiny letter 'N', and then it drew a circle next to it. 'NO', in capital letters.

Incidentally, that was precisely what Yoko Ono yelled as rays of light dripped from the ceiling word, first in a trickle and then in a downpour, spreading outward so as to cover most of the room. Yoko Ono could not avoid being hit; several of them sliced right through her flesh. She tried to run and hide her head, but she might as well have been dead.

And in a few seconds, she was.

The light did not harm Sora's party. Only a heart lost to darkness would sooner die than be exposed to brightness.

The darkness outside the windows cleared up in an instant. Dakota castle's miserable atmosphere vanished, replaced by something dirty and uninviting but easily less intimidating.

Mira smiled. "Here comes the sun, Sora. I say it's all right."

The last remnant of the old castle to disappear was the word on the ceiling. It didn't quite blink out of existence, however. The bright outlines of the letters clustered together and turned into a blob, which melded into the shape of a keyhole.

Sora knew what to do from there.


	16. You're Gonna Be In My Dreams Tonight

Chapter 16 – You're Gonna Be In My Dreams Tonight

Another day, another dollar, another world saved, all thanks to Sora and the gang. As formulas went, it wasn't a terribly bad one. The only issues remaining were the trip back to the Gummi Ship and what to do with Mira.

Mira had ideas on the latter topic.

"Have I told you how great you guys were back there?"

Donald answered, "A few times. Yes."

"Well," said Mira, "I want to tell you again. That was magnificent. I can hardly believe I got to see such brave heroes overcoming such incredible odds to save the beautiful princess. Can you believe it?"

Sora rubbed his hands on the back of his neck. "We're a little bit used to it by now. You know, dashing in to the middle of a hopeless situation, easily disposing of the bad guys, and saving the day. We're professional heroes."

"Junior her—" Goofy said before Donald smacked him.

Mira practically swooned. "And I get to see you do it. I must be the luckiest girl in the world."

The group walked in silence for a bit after that. Sora didn't feel like talking. Thoughts of Dakota Castle, the Heartless, and the excruciating musical torture he'd witnessed had already departed his mind. After all, they weren't so much more unusual than the flying pirate ships, planet-sized whales, Greek warrior tournaments, talking flowers, and dancing pumpkin kings he'd seen elsewhere. The world's events just weren't significant in the long run.

No, the only things on his mind on the way back to the ship were memories of Kairi. Kairi, teasing him by making him gather up materials for their raft. Kairi, tantalizing him with thoughts of running off alone and leaving Riku in the proverbial dark. Kairi, drawn in chalk on the wall of the secret little cave by the beach. Kairi, looking just like Mira.

Uncanny resemblance or not, Mira just wasn't Kairi, and because of that, Sora just couldn't give his heart to her. If he did, Jiminy would never let him hear the end of it, and he had enough ammunition already with the girls Sora flirted with whenever he visited the other worlds. Alice of Wonderland, in particular, caused him a lot of grief.

But Mira wouldn't let go of his arm, the whole way. She gripped him tightly enough that he thought she wanted to pull him down to the planet, to be hers forever. As much as he relished that though, there were still other worlds to save, and if he didn't go save them, this world, too, would disappear.

So would Kairi and Riku.

Of course, when they finally reached the freshly repaired Gummi Ship, Chip and Dale greeted them out front, and the inevitable sweet sorrow happened: Mira leaned in to kiss Sora.

Though an eternity passed in the meantime, Sora pulled his head away.

"But I wanted to go with you, Sora," she said to him.

"I know," said Sora.

XXX

Outside Mira's window, far outside, completely out of range of the naked eye, a speck of a spaceship carrying a disgruntled wizard, a clueless knight, a pedantic conscience, and a milquetoast hero sped through the cosmos in search of a new world to save. Inside Mira's living room, a lonely girl ignored her pack of noisy brothers while attempting to save worlds of her own. Mira knew it was the wrong thing to do. She knew she had to move on. Still, she found herself unable to turn off her Sony Playstation 2.

On the monitor in front of her couch, a spiky-haired boy in baggy pants and a tacky shirt pointed a giant key toward the sky and sealed away another victory, while the locals cheered him on. Mira was the only one watching who just had to cry.

fin


End file.
